Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a new cost recovery scheme, with the aim of recovering the costs of inspecting, investigating and taking enforcement action against businesses that break health and safety laws.

Known as Fee for Intervention (FFI), the scheme began to operate on 1st October and will enable the HSE to recover costs where there has been a material breach of health and safety law.

A material breach is where a business or organisation has broken the law and the inspector judges it serious enough to notify them in writing.

The Department for Transport has published statistics showing that in 2011 more people died or were injured in reported accidents on British roads than in the previous year.

In particular:

• The annual number of people killed in road accidents reported to the police has increased by 3%, from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011. This is the first increase since 2003.