SUMMARY OF CCA'S RESPONSE
TO DETR'S CONSULTATION DOCUMENT "REVITALISING
HEALTH AND SAFETY"
- New legal Duties should
be imposed upon directors
- Companies should be legally
obliged to provide safety information in their annual
reports
- If the DETR is serious about
"encourag[ing] unscrupulous employees to take
their health and safety responsibilities seriously"
[Para 54] it must provide the HSE sufficient resources
so that it can carry out the:
- investigation of all
major injuries;
- in relation to major
injuries and deaths, the prosecution of those
companies and their senior officers where sufficient
evidence exists.
- The HSE must at the same
time, re-orientate its whole enforcement and prosecution
policy setting aside much of the "philosophy"
set out in the1972 Robens report which currently
grounds its work. The Robens report argued that
the criminal law should have a "limited role".
However, its conclusions were both empirically and
analytically flawed. Crucially, the Robens report
failed to distinguish those incidents;
- which result in major injury
and death and where a serious criminal offence may
have taken place (although action must also, of
coarse, be taken to ensure that it doesn't happen
again), from
- those breaches of the law
that do not result in any harm (only an increased
risk of harm) where a wholly preventative approach
- as laid out in Robens - is required.
- the HSE must ensure that
it has a "consistent" investigation and
prosecution policy
- The HSE must change its
prosecution policy in line with the Environment
Agency
- The HSE must consider the
application of GBH offences and extend its protocol
of liaison
with the policy in relation to major injuries
- The HSE must change its
practice in relation to the investigation and prosecution
of
directors and managers for health and safety offences
- HSE inspectors should not
prosecute any cases involving death or major injury.
The HSE
should instruct lawyers
- Lawyers representing the
HSE should be instructed by the HSE, in cases involving
death and major injury, make strong representations
to the magistrate that the case be heard in the
Crown Court.
- the government should enact
a number of new result based offences and an offence
relating to reckless endangerment
- The Government should consider
a system of "proportionate" and "equity"
fines.
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