Fair for all?

After much dispute and delay, the HSE’s Fee for Intervention (FFI) cost recovery scheme is currently set to come into effect on October 1st, 2012, subject to Parliamentary approval.

Fairness is said to be the underlying issue: for the first time, those who break health and safety laws will pay their share of the costs to rectify the breach, sparing the expense to the public purse or law-abiding businesses. The scheme is about creating a viable way for the HSE to fund itself — it will have a duty to recover its own costs for the time and effort it spends on inspecting, investigating and taking action. FFI will only cover ‘material breaches’ of the law, and for the amount of time the HSE works on each case, a proposed hourly fee of £124 will be charged.

The HSE is staking a lot on the scheme’s success: FFI could allow it to recover up to £43.6 million a year from employers at a time when the government’s four-year 35% cut in the HSE’s funding will leave the regulator around £80 million a year worse off from 2014/15. If the scheme fails, there would be, in the words of the HSE’s consultative document, “a decrease in health and safety standards throughout Great Britain, with the ensuing costs to society”. The HSE already recovers its costs in a range of industries under existing schemes and most health and safety stakeholders seem to have accepted this new fiscal reality (in a membership survey carried out by the British Safety Council to inform its response to the HSE’s consultation, seven out of ten respondents agreed with the principle behind the proposals). A common concern, however, is that FFI will change the relationship between the HSE and the employers it regulates, with the HSE able to impose charges on businesses at a time when they are already under considerable financial pressure.

And then there’s the practicalities of how it will actually work. Some critics believe the scheme will become just another administrative burden for both businesses and health and safety inspectors. Others want to see greater transparency and accountability enshrined within the scheme’s operation to ensure that it is applied consistently by HSE inspectors and not driven by financial pressures.

Until the scheme is in full operation, the real-world implications remain unknown to a certain degree. What is clear is that the scheme’s success hinges on employer understanding and acceptance. HSE has already issued guidance on the scheme to give duty holders “clarity and certainty” about what they can expect from the new approach. This can be read at: www.hse.gov.uk/fee-for-intervention/index.htm.

As to whether the scheme will gain widespread acceptance, it’s likely that the devil will be in the detail. The HSE has spent time gathering views from employers, worker representatives and anyone who holds an interest, but it remains to be seen whether these opinions will be used to help shape the detail of how the scheme will work. Having had the scheme’s launch date put back from April due to ongoing discussions on technical details, there is good reason to be open minded at this stage. On page 12, RoSPA’s Roger Bibbings also weighs in on the matter and explains why he thinks employers should get behind FFI.

Catherine Christie
Acting Editor
Health & Safety Matters
[email protected]