The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Increases its Fee

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has increased its Fee For Intervention (FFI) hourly rate from £129 to £154.

The new charge came into effect on 6 April 2019.  It is the second increase since the scheme was introduced in October 2012. The rate first went up in 2016, from £124.

Under the FFI scheme, the HSE only recovers costs of its regulatory work from non-compliant dutyholders found to be in material breach of safety and health law.

A material breach is defined by the HSE as “something which an inspector considers serious enough that they need to formally write to the business requiring action to be taken”.

The fee covers an inspector’s time spent identifying and resolving the issue, as well as any investigation or enforcement action up to the point where HSE’s intervention has been concluded or a prosecution is started.  It is calculated by multiplying the time spent on FFI activity by the hourly rate.

In a statement, the HSE said this can be attributed in part to the fact that the scheme has operated recently at a deficit.  In 2017/18 the HSE reported a £1.9m loss from running the FFI scheme after the £15m it generated from fines to businesses was offset by its operating costs, which totalled almost £17m.

If businesses wish to minimise the risk of picking up a FFI bill, an effective method is to use the services of one of Aegis’s health and safety experts to review or audit what arrangements are currently in place and identify any areas of concern.