New sentencing rules set to ramp up safety fines
From today (1 February 2016), the ‘Health and Safety Offences and Corporate Manslaughter Offences Guidelines’ could mean higher (and potentially unlimited) fines for companies and public sector bodies who fall short of complying with health and safety law.
The new guidelines say that in the event of a health and safety prosecution a fine “must be sufficiently substantial to have a real economic impact which will bring home to management…the need to comply with health and safety legislation”.