An environmental health officer today approached one of our vans and fined the driver for us not displaying a no smoking sign, no question as to whether he smoked, no question as to whether the company policy, no question as to whether he had been informed as it being illegal to smoke in the vehicle, simply looked inside the vehicle seen there was no sign and slapped him with the fine. (The van is used by two non smokers, it is their van and no one else has access to it)

Firstly I am aware that legally there should have been a sign, however all our van drivers are informed of our smoking policy and have a copy in their vans, all employees are made aware of similar when joining the company and all know exactly where they can and cannot smoke, to add to this our company introduced a "help to stop" scheme whereby employees were given coaching on stopping smoking, which was such a success only a few are still smokers.

So despite all our efforts at going above and beyond we have been punished by some over zealous jobsworth, and when the word went round all our guys the thought on this was "what a waste of time and effort all the stop smoking stuff was, we are being done for trying to do the right thing", well done bud you have set us back months.

So despite me being livid by this what I now need to know is company cars, should company cars also have these signs in full display regardless of the usage of the driver as none of ours currently do, are we leaving ourselves open again to some local authority overzealous jobsworth handing us another fine?

PS, this is under Scots law.

I know that in England the The Smoke-free (Signs) Regulations 2012 were brought in to help simplify and reduce the need for no smoking signs (as everyone knows you can't smoke in public buildings these days). There is only one sign required now and it can be any size, content as opposed to the previous mandatory sign. You do still to display one sign in the vehicle too however (again the size and design is open to interpretation now).

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1536/made

So in short I'd say that all works vehicles shouls have one no smoking sign on display.

I'm pretty sure that the Smoking, Health & Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 is very similar to the original Enlgish Law so I'd still consider it necessary to include the sign in Scottish vehicles too.

To just stick one of the small circular nbo smoking signs inside the windscreen/on the dashboard would just cost some loose change so I'd just bite the bullet and put them in personally rather than give them the satisfaction of taking any more cash from you.

anorak

The circumstances you described struck me as both curious and alarming for the reasons you gave, and prompt the following questions:

For a start, was the official involved actually an environmental health officer (EHO) or someone posing as one and committing a fraud?

Did the official show the van driver any form of identification and/or give him a card with his name and contact details?

For those of us not familiar with the legislation involved, can anyone advise if it or related laws enable EHOs to impose 'on the spot' fines and especially for what the vast majority of us would surely class as a minor infringement? As a parallel, during my time with HSE inspectors would advise/remind employers that the law obliged them to display certain official posters regarding factory-related OS&H regulations to their employees, but I don't recall any inspectors ever taking enforcement action about such matters.

Also, why did the EHO fine the employee? Surely, if a fine could be levied, the EHO should have taken a brief statement from the employee as evidence that the van didn't contain a no smoking sticker and then pursue the employer!

How much was the fine and did the EHO give the driver a receipt?

If the EHO was genuine and had the power to levy a fine, did the money benefit his local authority employer? If so, perhaps EHOs are under pressure or "encouraged" nowadays to look for as many ways as possible to generate income for their cash-strapped local authority employers, just as HSE inspectors appear (according to some threads on this forum) to be increasingly vigilant for 'material breaches' which will reap money for HSE and (mostly) The Treasury through Fees For Intervention (FFI).

Do any forum users know if similar circumstances have occurred elsewhere? If not, perhaps the man was either a very over-zealous EHO or a convincing imposter.

Zimmy

Company cars are exempt from the legislation in Scotland.

Sorry should have explained more, the EHO told the driver he would be issuing the fine to the company and gave our guy a sign to display, he said the fine would be £250 and we would receive it in due course, he refused to listen when our guy spoke of the company policy, even when he said he would be sacked if caught smoking in the van, he also told the EHO he was a non smoker but it made no difference, our employee was courteous and mannerly when speaking to the EHO all to no avail, rather than pick up a phone to ask why no signage was in place he decided to issue the fine.

Zimmy I may have been a bit harsh with the jobsworth bit, but I was agry that someone who knows nothing about our company issues this fine for what is a very minor offence, I accept the chap was only doing his job but is no one allowed to be reasonable anymore?

A quick phone call to my office and he would have been informed of all the work we do with regards to the environment and to the health of our employees, we target the real risks our guys face and ensure the correct preventative measures are in place for HAVS, occupational asthma, industrial deafness ect. We are in the middle of an environmental purge just now and are preventing waste, recycling, reusing and getting surplus stock to charities to help them out, it is costing us a lot of money and it took me a very long time to convince our directors this was the way to go, but thanks to this guy I am being questioned as to the cost and effort.

We do more than what is required to simply be legally compliant, for any company within the construction industry to be doing this type of thing at this present time is nigh on a miracle.

Finally the van he inspected was new, all the older vans in our fleet have the signs and this was an oversight by one of our managers, one which I will be able to laugh about in a few days.

Anorak, put it like this. If you are booked for 25 mph in a 20mph zone all the years of good driving will mean nothing to the police man booking you or the flashing speed cam. I was booked for parking in our high street. I was in a loading bay with every single store in fifty meters shut and boarded up, not another vehicle in sight and on a Sunday. I was buying walking/mountain boots of all things. I agree with you in what you say but the person was just doing his job, just like us. How many times have you been called a jobsworth behind our back? Don't ask cos it hurts ;-)

Perhaps the Local Authorities have now found their own version of Fee For Intervention!

Rodger Ker

IMO i think the EHO has gone a bit overboard here. From the OP, they had systems in place and were being very pro-active with regards to their stopping smoking scheme. Failuire to display a sign could have been an oversight but surely the EHO could have had a friendly word and informed them that a sign was a requirement.

Even if he was doing his job or not there are surely far more important things that he could spend his time on.

"if he decides to enforce the law"

The point is, as with FFI, that it should not be up to an individual officer to decide to enforce the law!

I must admit that when I first read this I was thinking along the same lines as Graham.

While I am pleased to hear that it wasn’t a scam, I am less pleased to hear that an enforcement officer has taken this action. If this is an accurate account of what has happened, then there is little doubt to me that the officer’s response was wholly disproportionate and I think you are entirely justified in feeling that the officer was an over zealous jobs worth.

Of course the display or not of many signs, posters etc has little or no effect on the management of risk, and while this was a technical breach I would say that I could walk around any number of buildings, including LA’s (and including this one here) and find any number of minor technical breaches that are not worthy of such a sledge hammer approach.

Redken - Posted: 06 June 2013 11:15:05
"if he decides to enforce the law"

The point is, as with FFI, that it should not be up to an individual officer to decide to enforce the law!

But surely some laws are (and are intended to be) directly 'enforceable' by individual officers using fixed penalties, such as 'speeding tickets', because if not then wouldn't the courts be hopelessly clogged up dealing with 1000's of minor offences. Just a thought!