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How large does my business need to be for health and safety legislation to impact me?

Health and safety legislation applies to all business regardless of size or sector, and all employers have a duty to ensure that health and safety is effectively managed within the workplace. This duty extends to both employees and any non-employees that may be affected by your activities – including clients, visitors and members of the public. It also applies regardless of whether employees are working on your premises or off site at another location. All employers, for example, must conduct risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential causes of harm. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advises that the approach you take should be proportionate to the size of your business and the nature of your business activity. For most small, low-risk businesses, the steps you need to take are straightforward. If you have fewer than five employees, you don’t have to write down your risk assessment or your health and safety policy. WorkNest can help you to strike the right balance and take a sensible, proportionate approach to risk.

What types of health and safety legislation do I need to follow?

The two primary pieces of health and safety legislation that all employers need to be aware of are the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. In a nutshell, the HSWA places a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is “reasonably practicable”, the health and safety and welfare of all their employees while at work, while the Management Regulations set out more specific requirements, such as the requirement to make a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of risks, appoint “competent persons”, provide workers with information and training, and operate a written health and safety policy.

Of course, other legislation may apply depending on the activities you undertake, such as the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, Manual Handling Operations 1992 and the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 which each have their own provisions that employers must be alert to.

What could happen if I breach health and safety law?

This depends on the circumstances – penalties for contravening health and safety law range from an enforcement notice requiring you to rectify an issue identified or stop an unsafe activity, to fines and imprisonment. If an HSE Inspector visits your workplace and finds that you are in material breach of health and safety law, you will also have to pay for the time it takes to put things right. This is known as Fee for Intervention and currently costs £157 an hour.

What is the average fine for a health and safety breach?

According to the latest HSE statistics, the average fine per conviction in 2019/20 was £110,000. This represents an increase of 307% since tougher sentencing guidelines were introduced in 2016 (in 2014/15, the average fine was £27,000 per conviction). If you’re concerned about the impact this could have on your bottom line, WorkNest can work with you to ensure compliance and dramatically reduce risk. What’s more, our optional Legal Expenses Insurance covers the costs of defending health and safety prosecutions (plus Fee for Intervention charges and appealing against the serving of an improvement or prohibition notice) for an added layer of protection.

Do I need to appoint someone to manage health and safety compliance?

Yes. Under Regulation 7 of the Management Regulations, “every employer shall, subject to paragraphs (6) and (7), appoint one or more competent persons” – someone with the necessary training, experience, knowledge and “other qualities” to help you comply with the requirements of health and safety law. If you don’t have somebody in-house who meets this criteria, the HSE says you can appoint an external professional such as WorkNest to help you.