Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Section 3 doesn't mention welfare.

Paul

Posted By Robert Tailby
The difference is as has been stated above - the duty is broadly the same but S3 applies it to anyone who is not a direct employee (and excludes "welfare").

This seems straightforward enough at first but it is worth noting that S3 has been stretched very widely by some prosecutions in the past - eg the NHS Trust who killed someone during a cardiac angiogram when air was accidentally injected. Also the recent CPS prosecution of the Met following the de Menezes shooting (sorry if spelling is wrong) used S3. It is also the section that applies to schools/local authorites taking kids on adventure trips etc, and is generally a "catch all" when no other law can be found to apply to a situation of public safety that people think should be regulated or the subject of a criminal prosecution.

Posted By Flic
No, I don't think the duty is higher (but may be more difficult to achieve, for reasons mentioned below). The words of s3 include 'conduct his undertaking' and this can refer to the measures you mention.

Likewise, when you get to the Management regs, reg 3 requires risk assessment in respect of employess and also persons not in his employment. The purpose of the risk assessment is the same.

The measures may well be different, due to the lack of control that may exist over the actions of people who are not in our employment.

So, for instance, when we run public events in which we do hands-on science experiments for children we are very mindful of the spread of ages and the lack of direct control that we have on their actions.

Flic

Posted By Bob Y
Although there is more detail in S2 I would suggest that you treat the duty as being much the same in the broader sense. Can I mention Octel?

Posted By Raymond Rapp
Kenneth, very good question. Agree with most of the comments but would also like to point out that s3 uses the term 'risk', which I believe was a first at the time. Only know of one prosecution using s3 and risk, this was HSE prosecuting the Trustees of the Science Museum.

In terms of hierarchy, I believe that s2 and s3 are similar and possibly the same. I certainly have never come across anything that indicates anything otherwise.

Someone mentioned a duty of care, which is predominately a common law concept and not really relevant to a statutory criminal law such as HSWA.

Ray

Posted By Robert Tailby
The way I read the case mentioned above, the point was that it would have been "reasonably practicable" to exclude the injured person from the danger area as there was no reason for him to be there. This is not the same as saying there is a blanket duty under s3 not to expose anyone to risk to any extent, which is an incorrect reading of the law in my opinion.