New date for Health and Safety Cost Recovery Scheme announced

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced that its cost recovery scheme, Fee for Intervention, is going ahead but will now not start in April 2012.

The scheme sets out to recover costs from those who break health and safety laws for the time and effort HSE spends on helping to put matters right - investigating and taking enforcement action.

The HSE has stressed that law-abiding businesses will be free from costs and will not pay a penny.

Gordon MacDonald, HSE's programme director, said: “The Government has agreed that it is right that those who break the law should pay their fair share of the costs to put things right - and not the public purse.

“The Government intends to proceed with the FFI scheme as recommended to ministers by HSE's Board in December in response to the formal consultation that took place last Summer.

“Discussions are still taking place on the technical details of the scheme, which we expect to conclude soon.

“Therefore, FFI will not be introduced in April but at the next available opportunity, which is likely to be October 2012.”

HSE is taking advantage of the extra time to work further with businesses to improve their understanding of the scheme and how it will affect them.

Detailed guidance for employers and organisations will be available on HSE's website ahead of implementation.

A practice run of the new processes and procedures underpinning the scheme is already underway in HSE and will continue until the scheme is implemented.