RenewableUK:

Meeting our Challenges

Health and Safety Update

Presented by

Laura Cameron, Partner

Introduction

• What are the Current Challenges in the Legal World?

– HSE Engagement: “Help Great Britain Work Well”

– Corporate Homicide Update

– Personal Liability

– Sentencing Update

– What’s next?

– Conclusion

Helping Great Britain Work Well• Strategic Themes

– Acting together

– Tackling ill-health

– Managing risk well

– Supporting small employers

– Keeping pace with change

– Sharing success

• Sector Plans– 19 industry specific plans that each include:

• Current health and safety performance

• Top three strategic priorities for the next 3-5 years

• Actions the HSE propose to take

Sector Plan: Offshore Energy• Current position

– UK is a world leader in offshore wind

– Production capacity is expected to double by 2020

• Priorities for the sector

– Preventing major incidents

– Managing the risks associated with ageing infrastructure and the failure of asset

integrity, and offshore decommissioning activities

– Improving leadership, competence and workforce involvement

• HSE Commitments to ‘#HelpGBworkwell’

– Take steps to reduce the likelihood of major incidents

– Provide an effective regulatory framework

– Engage with the industry to improve workplace health and safety

Corporate Homicide UpdateCORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES SUMMARY

• TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES BROUGHT: 28

- Total number of cases in England and Wales 23

- Total number of cases in Scotland 0

- Total number of cases in Northern Ireland 5

• TOTAL CONVICTIONS: 21

- Guilty Plea 15

- After Trial 6

• TOTAL ACQUITTALS: 5

• TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES OUTSTANDING: 2

Personal Liability• Evidence that the HSE’s enforcement policy is placing a greater

emphasis on the prosecution of individuals.

• Prosecutions under s.37 HSWA increased by 400% in past 5

years.

• No definition in HSWA of what constitutes a ‘senior manager’ but

intended to apply to manager who controls the workplace or

organises the way work is done.

• Recent prosecutions resulted in custodial sentences for directors

and managers.

Sentencing: Paddle Ltd (s37)• Derek Barnes, Director, Paddle Ltd

• Fined £32,000 plus £11,000 in costs, and sentenced

to eight months imprisonment suspended for two

years and disqualified from acting as a director for

three years

• July 2013 plea of guilty to s37 relating to 2 working

at height incidents:

– August 2011: Injury after 4 metre fall

from badly constructed scaffolding being used

for excessive loads

– March 2012: Worker standing in the elevated bucket of an excavator at the same site. A concerned householder took a photograph and told HSE.

• Company fined £56,000 plus £11,000 costs.

Sentencing: David Mulholland• Plea of guilty to breaching Section 7 of the HSWA1974

• Sentenced to 6 months imprisonment, suspended for

18 months, fined £1,400 and was ordered to pay costs

of £2,939

• On 21 January 2015, a member of the public gave the

HSE a photograph of Mulholland balancing on scaffold

tubes in the rain on a site in central Manchester, 90 feet

above ground level.

– Mulholland had climbed up the scaffold to hammer

steel beams into place

– He had not used the tower scaffold made available to him or the full time scaffolder on site to

ensure safe working platforms were in place

– Mulholland “didn’t realise how stupid he was being until he saw the picture”

Sentencing: Craig Services and Access Ltd • Donald Craig, Director of Craig Services and Access Ltd

• Mr Craig was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment (the statutory maximum) following a 16 day trial

in Airdrie Sheriff Court

• Crane boom buckled with the two men in an elevated

basket at Buchanan House, Port Dundas, in June 2012

– Gary Currie, 39, died and Alexander Nisbet, 38,

sustained a head injury after their platform fell 28m

– The company had a buckling incident in 2011 and

had been advised by the manufacturer to replace

the faulty boom. Instead the beam was repaired

and the repairs were not adequately examined prior

to use.

• Company fined £61,000 and another contractor fined £30,000

Sentencing Update• Health and Safety Offences, Corporate Manslaughter and Food

Safety and Hygiene Offences: Definitive Guideline

– In force for all offences committed in England and Wales

covered by the guidelines sentenced post 1 February 2016.

– Starting points for fines are based on turnover – not profit

– The risk of harm is considered, not the consequences

– Guidelines do not technically apply in Scotland, BUT…

• A decision in a recent Scottish appeal has opened the door to the

new guidelines, stating that they should be used as a ‘cross-check’

once a figure has been reached based on Scottish precedent

Recent Sentencing Decisions• Travis Perkins Trading Company Limited:

– A customer was loading planks of timber onto the roof of his Landrover when he fell

and was fatally injured by a Travis Perkins lorry operating in the yard

– Travis Perkins pleaded guilty to two offences under the HSAW 1974 and was fined

£2million with prosecution costs of £114,812.76

• Wilko

– On 12 January 2017, the company was fined £2.2m after a worker was crushed and

paralysed at their Leicester store. The employee was moving a roll cage full of paint in

2013, when the cage fell on top of her, leaving her paralysed. The company pleaded

guilty to 4 offences under the HSWA 1974

– By way of contrast, Wilko were fined £200k in January 2016 for a fatal accident

involving an employee who was crushed between forklift trucks. The company

pleaded guilty to a breach of ss2 of the HSWA 1974

What’s next?

• Scottish Sentencing Council

• Proceeds of Crime

• Brexit

Conclusion• How can the Industry meet the challenges ahead?

– Engage in the discussions between HSE and RenewableUK

– Ensure you have effective senior leadership in place

– Ensure the competence of workers, supervisors and support

personnel

– Keep well versed in the changes in the law and current

trends

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