Fewer prosecutions; bigger fines

December 2, 2018
Contact us
Request a call back

The latest figures released by the HSE show that a verdict was reached in 517 cases prosecuted by the HSE (or the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland) in 2017/18 a fall from 612 cases in 2016/17. Of those cases a conviction for at least one offence was reached in 493 (95% of cases) leading to £72.6million in fines being issued. This represents an average fine of £147,000 per case an increase from £126,000 per case in 2016/17.

In addition to the fines around 7% of prosecutions resulted in an immediate custodial sentence and a further 9% in a suspended sentence.

In 2017/18 there were also 11,522 enforcement notices were issued by the HSE and local authorities (8,942 by the HSE, 2,580 local authorities) a decrease of 3% compared to the previous year.

The latest enforcement statistics can be downloaded from the HSE’s website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/enforcement.pdf

Our Health and Safety support service can help you plan ahead, identify weaknesses and maintain legal compliance. Please contact us at info@pibrm.com  if you have any questions or would like to arrange a Health and Safety compliance audit.