7
June, 2000
The CCA welcomes government commitment to impose
safety duties uppon directors
The Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) welcomes
many of the Government's commitments set out in its
Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Document.
In particular, the CCA supports the Government's commitment
to impose upon company directors legal duties relating
to safety. This is a significant and important commitment
that has the potential to improve dramatically the safety
record of companies in Britain.
In contrast to the situation with financial responsibilities,
the law at present does not impose safety duties upon
company directors. The absence of duties allows company
boardrooms to remain ignorant of hazards within their
company and to take no interest in ensuring that their
companies are safe. It also means that when workplace
deaths, injuries and disasters do to take place, it
is difficult to allocate criminal responsibility at
the top of the company
The CCA
also supports the Government's commitment:
- to change to
law so that courts can sentence directors and
managers to imprisonment if convicted of any health
and safety offence - at present, this is restricted
to only a small number of technical offences;
- to make sure
that the Health and Safety Executive revises its
prosecution policy in line with that of the Environment
Agency so that in the future, it will prosecute
when there is sufficient evidence rather than
when it can simply afford to do so.
- to consider alternative
ways of sentencing companies including making
fines proportionate to the profits and turnover;
Link
to Documents on "Revitalising Health and Safety"
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