How are health and safety fines decided?

How the court works out the fine

1. 01

   Culpability

   How far the business fell short of the standard: very high, high, medium or low.

2. 02

   Harm

   How serious the harm risked was and how likely it was. Nobody has to be hurt: the offence is creating the risk.

3. 03

   Turnover

   The organisation's turnover sets the starting point and range, from micro to large.

4. 04

   Adjust

   The court weighs aggravating and mitigating factors, checks the fine against the firm's overall means, then reduces it for a guilty plea.

Starting points for smaller firms

• Low culpability, harm category 4

  Micro (turnover up to £2 million)

  £200

  Small (£2 million to £10 million)

  £700

• Medium culpability, harm category 3

  Micro (turnover up to £2 million)

  £14,000

  Small (£2 million to £10 million)

  £24,000

• High culpability, harm category 2

  Micro (turnover up to £2 million)

  £54,000

  Small (£2 million to £10 million)

  £100,000

• Very high culpability, harm category 1

  Micro (turnover up to £2 million)

  £250,000

  Small (£2 million to £10 million)

  £450,000

Note: Harm category 1 means a high likelihood of death, or of injury leaving someone dependent on care for life. These are starting points only: full ranges run from £50 to £450,000 for micro organisations and £100 to £1.6 million for small ones.

What moves a fine up or down

• Up: cutting costs at the expense of safety, previous convictions, a poor safety record, falsified documents or obstructing the investigation.
• Up: exposing a number of people to the risk, or being a significant cause of actual harm.
• Down: a good record, effective procedures, prompt steps to put things right, self-reporting and cooperation.
• Down: a guilty plea, which normally earns a reduction of one third at the first stage of proceedings, and less later.

Prison for individuals

Since the Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008, individuals convicted of most health and safety offences can be sent to prison for up to two years. That includes directors, managers and employees. In the most serious cases, the guideline starting point is 18 months' custody.

Why prevention costs a small firm less

• The guideline says it should not be cheaper to offend than to take the right precautions, so money saved is normally added to the fine.
• Courts can also order you to pay the prosecution's costs on top of the fine.
• A fine can close a small firm. The guideline says that may be an acceptable result in some bad cases.

What the courts have said

• R v F Howe and Son (Engineers) Ltd [1999] 2 All ER 249

  The Court of Appeal said a fine needs to be large enough to bring the safety message home to managers and shareholders, while reflecting what the business can pay. Deliberately running a risk to save money makes an offence more serious.

• R v Tata Steel UK Ltd [2017] EWCA Crim 704

  Two workers lost parts of fingers in machinery; the judge said an interlock on a gate would have prevented the second injury. The Court of Appeal cut the total fine from £1,985,000 to £1,500,000, finding harm less likely than the judge had, because the machine had run about 150,000 working hours without incident.