Posted By Steve Butler I read with dismay the recent article published on the IOSH website on Wednesday 7th July 2006 written by the current President of IOSH, Neil Budworth. Neil wrote about the Hatfield disaster of October 2000 and how the fine handed to Balfour Beatty of £7.5m was nothing more than a slap on the wrist. No matter how large the corporation, £7.5m is a massive amount of money and is not easily replaced. The reason behind the appeal was the disparity in the size of fines between Balfour Beatty and Network Rail. It was never about Balfour Beatty having been fined too much; it was about a fair and just approach considering the findings of the case. The Hatfield disaster very tragically led to the loss of lives and although of little consolation to those affected, very valuable lessons have been learnt which enabled Balfour Beatty to move forward having invested significantly in doing so to ensure the health and safety of employees and the public, where operations demanded it. I believe that good health and safety management is all about moving forward, making changes and in the event of accidents happening, never letting the same thing happen again? I am also all for the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter law but the article Neil wrote goes beyond that and, in my opinion portrays a vision that fining corporations large sums of money becomes justice itself. This will never work and was not what The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was introduced to achieve. Fining organisations often has very little effect on an improvement on their health and safety management system anyway, perhaps being forced into investing in the very thing that caused the failure would be far more beneficial for everyone? Only the other day I heard on the radio how the government had stopped short of fining a water company, who shall remain nameless but instead insisted that they invest extra millions of pounds on top of that already invested to stop leaks in ageing pipelines that carry our drinking water around the country. Perhaps this is the way we should be thinking?

Posted By Jim Walker Steve, I'm inclined to agree with you, however we need some system of deterrant to ensure the "deciding mind" of a large organisation incurres proportionally the same loss as a small one. If you review the successful manslaughter cases over the years, its always small company directors who have been punished; imprisonment, fines bankrupcy etc. The herald of free enterprise, various rail companies, piper alpha and recently Barrow council etc etc directors have walked away with a smirk on their faces.

Posted By gham A probationary period perhaps, where resposible people are legaly bound to comply with in (a warrant or, order), breach of which would become the criminal offence resulting in imrisonment and/or fine. Fining companies such large sums of money will only make H&S improvements more of a burden, in the real world no matter how big the company you will normaly be asked 'how much' before 'what is the benifit'.

Posted By Zaphod Forgive me for sounding a little self-righteous and stereotyping but I need to get this off my chest. I have found many of the directors I have had to deal with in my career hard work because they do not see the world in the same way as I do. I do not need overwhelming evidence to justify a H&S decision. I see a possible accident happening with major carnage - even with a low likelihood of it happening and I imagine myself in a situation of immense regret after the incident thinking - could I have done something to prevent it. I would hope that many H&S bods think like that. Now directors; many are a different species. I cannot get inside their heads but many seem to enjoy playing Devils Advocate to H&S recommendations - especially those involving diverting budgets from projects that they find more sexy. They tend to be very quick thinking people - often with the gift of the gab and able to talk their way out of any situation - unable to see the blind-spots in their thinking. I have also come across a minority in local authority who ruled by bullying and fear - seeing H&S as something else to ridicule or ignore for the hell of it. I thought Lyndon Sherman's article in last months S&H Practitioner provided an interesting explanation as to why managers and directors do not treat H&S as a priority because it is not perceived as an imminent threat - to their subconscious. To come back to the thread - if all Directors were enlightened Sir John Harvey Jones types then perhaps relatives of victims of major disasters would have a greater sense of justice when directors are not individually punished. Incidentally, I must emphasise that I am not referring to my current place of employment - of course!!

Posted By ken mosley There has been alot of debate of late linking proportionality of fines to an organisations turnover and more importantly to its profitability. However, I personally feel that if we had a judiciary that was more capable of thinking laterally we would move on at a pace slightly quicker than glaciers.I can only recall one case where the little used sect.42 of HASWA has been employed, there may well be others. The case in question was an architect on whom the court imposed a remediation order. He was ordered to go away and undergo training to incorporate H&S into the design process. Good shout by the judge/magistrate I say.

Posted By Zaphod Ken Just to come back on your last point, I'm getting too cynical. I have found that even enlightened CEOs/Directors will manage to find some tiny flaw in your hard facts/business case/ statistics/SWOT analysis and make that tiny flaw seem a big one - at least during their meetings - enough to defer making a decision until some other time. It's a skill and a character trait - they can't help it. Sorry, to be so pesimistic, I'm sure there are some magic ways to get directors to support H&S decisions that involve funds - maybe by driving them mad by bringing up the same old issues every-time you see them - or by some cunning way of getting them to think your idea was their idea. Having said that the threat of imprisonment/personal fines is probably unlikely to make a difference to such risk-blase people. At least it will make bereaved family members of accident victims feel that there is justice.

Posted By Dave Wilson I agree mate but its about PPP leading to PPP. As far as bereaved relatives go its never about the money its about Justice and more importantly Seeing justice done and someone being held accountable. If one of the large petro firms who make billions every year a £10,000,000 fine is peanuts and we as mere mortals can do the maths this would not hurt them and until it is a 'substatnial' fine in realtion to turnover then it will not change

Posted By Ian Mitchell In agreement with Kevin. However, to reiterate if compliance would have cost the company say £10k, the fine (for investment into H+S) should be substantially more than that. Then, the directors are hit where they know about it and the people HASAW is designed to protect feel the benefit it originally intended back before I was even born!

Posted By Merv Newman John Murgatroyd. I'm with you. Fines should not be paid by the company but by the "controlling minds". A board of directors has perhaps 10 members and a president. President pays half and every other member pays 5% Percentage based on declared profit before dividend Discuss Merv

Posted By jom IT, >who do you think was blamed by the company, why yes it was those >that were killed in the incident I don't think this is correct.