Health and Safety Pack

Understanding the statutory requirements and obligations your company has to provide a safe working environment is essential to maintaining the trust in the working relationship between you and your employees, and to avoid costly and time-consuming tribunal cases

This pack will provide you with all of the essential knowledge and tools that you need to ensure that you provide a workplace where employees, contractors and visitors are safe, and that your actions comply with current UK law

Why is this important?

All employers have a ‘duty of care’ to protect their employees. There is an implied term in all contracts of employment that an employer must take reasonable steps to ensure they provide a working environment that does not put an employees’ health and safety at risk. For example, employers must:

Provide a safe place of workProvide a safe system of workRecruit competent and safety conscious employeesProvide and maintain adequate equipment

If a company fails to uphold its responsibility in any of these areas then it may receive claims from employees (such as constructive unfair dismissal or personal injury) or be prosecuted in both civil and criminal courts 

All companies have legal responsibilities set out in the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), the Working Time Regulations (1998), and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) to look after the health, safety, and welfare at work of their employees (this includes minimising the risk of work-related mental health issues as well as injuries in the workplace)

The Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) covers all workplaces and stipulates that “an employer must do everything reasonably practicable to provide a safe and healthy workplace”. The Working Time Regulations provide a framework for rest and working hours that employers must comply with, and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) set out what employers are required to do in order to manage health & safety (including assessing whether it has taken sufficient precautions to prevent damage and injury). Section 3 of these regulations stipulates that all companies must make (and record, if they have more than 5 employees) a sufficient assessment of the risks posed to employees whilst in the workplace, and must ensure that there are proper controls in place to remove or limit these risks wherever possible (this is done using a Risk Assessment form (RA1), an example of which (RA2) is included in the Health & Safety Pack)

As working long periods of time, or insufficient rests between shifts, can clearly affect wellbeing (and create unnecessary stress in the workplace) the Working Time Regulations (1998) stipulate the following legal entitlements for employees:

A maximum working week of 48 hours (including overtime) averaged over a 17 week period (unless an employee specifically ‘opts out’ of this in writing)A minimum rest break of 20 minutes if working in excess of 6 hours in a dayA minimum rest period of 11 hours between finishing work one day and starting work the following dayA maximum of 8 hours work for a night shiftA minimum of one day off every weekPaid holiday leave of at least 4 weeks (plus 8 statutory Bank Holidays) per year

(the minimum rest periods can be reduced on exception provided ‘compensatory’ rest is given (to equate to the lost rest not taken) within 7 days of the reduced period of rest)

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act (2007) allows a company to be convicted for a proven gross breach (by members of management) of its duty of care to those who died 

Any failure to follow the legal requirements set out in the various Acts (described above) may lead to:

a regulator (such as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or local authority) may prosecute the company (and senior managers within the company) in a criminal law courtthe person affected may make a claim for compensation against the company in a civil law court and/or employment tribunal

No actual harm has to have occurred for an offence to be committed under these laws (there only has to be a risk of harm present), and simply having forms and documents relating to H&S in the business is not enough to provide protection, the company MUST be able to demonstrate that it follows the procedures that it has put into place

The only range of possible actions are:

(If the company has to receive assistance from the Health & Safety Executive to remedy safety failings then it will be charged for the time taken to provide the advice or guidance with what is known as a 'fee for intervention')

The company can also be found liable if an employee has been negligent and caused harm to some other person, and so it is important to link the H&S policy to all other company policies and procedures (in particular Disciplinary, Performance Management, Absence Management, and Holiday & Statutory Leave)

Some examples of recent successful civil and criminal prosecutions for H&S breaches are: 

A company was ordered to pay £750,000 in fines (plus costs) for failing to ensure two of its employees had sufficient rest between working shifts after they were killed in a crash. The employee’s manger had instructed the men to take on an extra job following the end of their usual shift, which resulted in them working a further 6 hours and then having to travel home from the site at 4am. One employee fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the van he was driving, with the other employee as a passenger, killing both on impact with another vehicle. The company was ordered to pay £300,000 in costs plus £150,000 for each of the 3 breaches of failing to perform a suitable and sufficient risk assessment on the day before the fatalities, which led to the company failing to comply with its own fatigue management procedures, and it failed to comply with the working time limits for safety critical work

The former managers of an Indian restaurant were given suspended prison sentences and the company fined £175,000 after an oven exploded in a chef’s face.  An investigation found that the oven was leaking gas and had no ignition switch, was being turned on and off using pliers, had to be lit using a flaming piece of paper, and the pipework (which was held together by sticky tape) was also leaking gas which ignited when the chef attempted to light the oven. The managers pleaded guilty to 10 breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act, the company was fined a total of £175,000 and ordered to pay £4,300 towards costs, plus each manager was also ordered to pay £4,000 in costs and sentenced to a total of 38 months in prison for the various offences (suspended for two years). The managers were also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and were disqualified from acting as director or management for 5 years

A chip shop employee (with the knowledge of two managers working alongside him at the time) who decided to change the fat in the fryer at too high a temperature (and when the store was open) injured himself receiving burns to his legs leading to 2 months absence from work. The company was found guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act because of the failure of the managers to stop the dangerous behaviour of the employee and was ordered to pay a fine of £75,000 plus costs of £1,980

An inspection at a garage found that an emergency fire exit had been nailed shut and inaccessible due to piled up tyres, and there was no smoke detection in the building. The company pleaded guilty to 3 breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and was fined £60,000 plus £10,000 costs. The company owner was handed an 8 month prison sentence (suspended for 2 years)

See more in our Health and Safety Case Study