LAW ENFORCEMENT AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY

21 NOVEMBER - CONGRESS HOUSE

I am glad to have the opportunity today to talk to you about corporate accountability and enforcement. Frances has raised a number of important issues and I hope I will be able to address some of the points she has made.

INJURIES NOT ACCEPTABLE

• Too many deaths, serious injuries and cases of ill-health occur at work.
  
  
• The bulk of the huge costs of poor health and safety are borne by society at large and not by the risk creators - this should not be tolerated.
  
  
• There are people here today, two who will speak later - Anne Jones and Tom Byrne - who have felt that cost personally, through the death of a loved one.
  
  
• The government is determined to ensure this is not the price some people pay for just going to work.
  
  
• We expect companies to abide by basic values, from honest financial dealings and fair competition to safeguarding people's health and safety.
  
  
• The main thrust of our attack on injury and ill-health must be to prevent it.
  
  
• How do we prevent: -
  
  
  • raising the profile of health and safety - including at board level
  • providing a benchmark of good practice and standards
  • informing, advising, and assisting companies - in order for them to achieve better standards of Health and Safety
  • punishing those who flout the law

RAISING THE PROFILE OF H&S

• As you know last year we launched, jointly with the Health and Safety Commission, our Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy to stimulate new impetus for securing higher health & safety standards in the workplace.
  
  
• A significant reduction in accident rates has occurred since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974 - unfortunately improvement has leveled off in recent years. Revitalising affirmed the Government's support for the framework established by the Act, but set out a strategy to make it bite more effectively.
  
  
• Revitalising sets the first ever national targets for everyone in the health and safety system to reduce the toll of injuries, ill-health and death, and the resultant working days lost, by 2010.
  
  
• We are determined these targets will be delivered - with at least half the improvement achieved by 2004.
  
  
• I am pleased to see the commitment to delivering the targets which is becoming apparent in both private and public sectors.
  
  
• A number of sectors have set their own targets, including construction, electrical, the food and drink industry, textiles, mining, quarries, paper and printing industry.
  
  
• Government and the Commission will be minitoring progress very closely.

ENFORCEMENT

• But targets are only targets without enforcement
  
  
• There must be enforcement.
  
  
• What do I mean by enforcement?
  
  
• It means inspectors using their powers when they are needed to prevent harm and to mark serious non-compliance, including bringing cases to court when prosecution is warranted so offenders can be held to account in public, and punished. It includes informing advising and encouraging duty holders.
  
  
• Enforcement should be targeted at those who create the greatest risks, or the most serious breaches.
  
  
• The HSC has consulted on a revised enforcement policy better designed to achieve these goals and provide for an effective balance in what enforcers do. The Commission plan to publish the revised policy in January. I have seen, and support their approach.
  
  
• Mel Draper, Head of HSE's Policy Division, will be saying more about the general thrust of the revised policy later this morning, and about plans to monitor and review how it works in practice.

SENTENCING

• I believe that most companies want to comply with health and safety law. There are some employers who put health and safety second - a very few who deliberately flout health and safety law.
  
  
• And when companies flout the law they must be properly punished.
  
  
• It is the courts that decide, within the terms Parliament lays down, what penalties, if any should follow a conviction.
  
  
• In November 1998, the Court of Appeal said that the health and safety fines being imposed were too low. I strongly agree.
  
  
• There have been some encouraging fines in particular cases.
  
  
• But I have been disappointed that we have not seen more marked progress generally.
  
  
• Judges in some cases have said that they would have sent the offender to jail if they'd had the power. We want to make sure they can in all the cases where it is appropriate.
  
  
• The Government plans to legislate to increase the maximum penalties available in magistrate courts. Most importantly, imprisonment will become available for most health and safety offences, instead of the present few.
  
  
• Wider availability of imprisonment will signal more clearly the seriousness of health and safety offences.
  
  
• In the meantime, I hope that the recent guidance from the Magistrates Association on sentencing in health and safety cases will lead to more appropriate sentencing levels.
  
  
• Keith Bradley will be speaking to you later about the proposal in the Home Office's consultation for a new offence of 'corporate killing'.

DIRECTORS

• Those with the ultimate responsibility in companies, at board level, must be seen to be accountable for health and safety failures.
  
  
• This was also the message of the influential Turnbull report which said that directors should have systems in place to ensure that risks to their businesses are identified and controlled - this includes health and safety risks.
  
  
• The Health and Safety Commission's guidance on director responsibilities helps to provide a benchmark - the sort of things which should be happening when a board takes its responsibilities seriously.
  
  
• The top people of every organisation, private, public and voluntary, must demonstrate leadership and commitment to ensuring the effective management of occupational risk.
  
  
• Ministers and the Commission have challenged the top 350 companies to include health and safety in their annual reports, from next year, as a further demonstration of their commitment. We make the same challenge to all public sector bodies too.
  
  
• I will be receiving a progress report from the Commission shortly.
  
  
• The Government and the Commission will be looking for clear evidence of improved corporate responsibility for health and safety.
  
  
• But we recognise that voluntary guidance may not be enough in itself and that is why we are looking at whether we should legislate in relation to directors responsibilities for health and safety - that is, a board level responsibility specifically for health and safety.

SAFETY REPRESENTATIVES

• It should go without saying that employers can learn a lot from their workforce.
  
  
• Employee involvement is essential to any effective health and safety management system.
  
  
• Safety representatives can make an invaluable contribution. Workplaces with safety representatives have half the accident rates of those that don't.
  
  
• Many workplaces, particularly the smaller ones, lack the benefits of permanent on-site safety representatives. That is where the worker safety adviser pilots come in. A voluntary scheme, started by the Health and Safety Commission and HSE, which they hope to have active by next March.
  
  
• The scheme will try out the idea of specially trained safety representatives visiting workplaces to promote employee consultation and involvement in health and safety, and is being promoted in five sectors (construction, vehicle manufacturing, hospitality, retail, and voluntary sectors).
  
  
• I am grateful to the TUC for the very full and active contribution they have already made to this project.

CONCLUSION

• Corporate accountability is a process.

It involves:

• setting the requirements which companies and other organisations should be judged by;
  
  
• helping the willing majority to comply; and
  
  
• forcing the unwilling few to do what society expects of them, exposing those who break the law to public scrutiny and to pressure to change, in the courts in serious cases, with a punishment to fit the crime.
  
  
• I am committed to helping ensure that the process of accountability works.