Hi,

I have served notices in a previous life for this, but everbody always complied, so it never got to the stage of prosecution.

A prosecution including this reg is probably most likely to occur following a serious accident or inspection with lots of other major faults.

A prosecution solely on Reg 7 seems highly unlikely. It would ultimately distill down to a argument of competency and what is "sufficient" in the circumstances; as in "sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities".

A Reg 7 offence was one of the charges to which ICL pled guilty after the 2004 explosion in their premises. Unfortunately Lord Gill never followed up this issue in his subsequent Inquiry, despite submissions from IOSH urging him to do so. He did make one recommendation about risk assessments, but didn't explore that area at all in the evidence and, probably as a result, it was a totally impracticable suggestion which has not been accepted by HSE.

One of our concerns was why, despite very many HSE inspections and associated enforcement actions, they never raised the issue to ICL until after the fatal explosion. Another concern was what competent advice was available/used by the other key parties, notably two gas suppliers, the insurer, etc.