Are You Prepared For The Corporate Manslaughter Act?

The Act will place greater responsibility on businesses to ensure that they put in place stringent health and safety practices. Failure to do so could lead to a business being publicly named and shamed, and fined up to ten percent of its annual turnover, should a death occur as a result of ’gross management failure’.

A gross management failure will occur where a company’s conduct falls considerably short of the duty of care it owed to the deceased. Directors and managers will need to show that they took all reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of those at risk.

“Most companies have some form of documented health and safety management in place. Certainly, for our members, protecting the health and safety of employees, customers and clients is of paramount importance,” said the FPB’s chief executive, Phil Orford. “This new legislation means that failure to manage and monitor their procedures could lead to a heavy fine and public humiliation. It is vital that smaller firms undertake a full review of their systems and processes to create and enforce strict health and safety procedures – and the FPB can help them to be better prepared.”

The FPB’s Health & Safety Guide is written specifically for smaller businesses and helps owner-managers to guard against workplace hazards. It covers general as well as sector-specific information, and includes health and safety policies and risk assessments. It comes with a CD-Rom of templates of documents for use with each subscriber’s business, helping to ease the burden of health and safety regulations. In 2007, the FPB’s Cost of Compliance survey revealed that members are forced to wade through an average of 14 hours of health and safety red tape every month.

“The guide is an accessible and cost-effective business tool. It helps the business owner evaluate risks and has essential contact information for third parties, ensuring that all the information you need is always to hand,” added Mr Orford.