I have never heard of this in over 20 years as a Safety and Health practitioner. We sometimes err on the side of caution under RIDDOR and we have all heard the term from the HSE over the years ' If in doubt report '

I have googled etc but can find no mention of overeporting

Has anyone else come across this ?

Edited by user 01 August 2020 12:56:51(UTC)  | Reason: Spelling and wording

Originally Posted by: peter gotch

I don't know exactly what the offence is but occasionally one hears of people being prosecuted for wasting Police time, so perhaps in theory there might be some possible similar offence of wasting HSE time.

But how else could one be prosecuted for doing something not required to be done.

Politics means that HSE would probably prefer as little underreporting as practical but in terms of their statistics, any underreporting will only redress a tiny fraction of the reportable incidents that are NOT reported.

When I worked for HSE we followed the policy of advising to report if in doubt.

I think your contact has dreamed this one up, or found some urban myth.

Thats my thought as you say why would the HSE say if in doubt report they would all take overeporting than undereporting

As with all such myths - "please identify the specific regulation under which this is required"

Total Rubbish - the only thing that might happen is the HSE/LA will visit to see what else you are doing wronge if such poor undertsanding of RIDDOR.

Wasting police time is an offence under Section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 when someone knowingly makes TO ANY PERSON (not just the police) a false report" which:

• Shows that a criminal offence has been committed,
• Creates apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or
• Indicates that they have information material to any police inquiry.

Which means that if someone was to tell the HSE that a scaffolder  were for example not applying WAH  so putting people at risk and it turns out they were in fact complaint then an offence would be committed. Simply reporting something a RIDDOR will not come into this as (and I’ll say this again) a RIDDOR is not an admission of liability or culpability. A RIDDOR, by itself, doesn’t mean that any crime has taken place.

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel

Wasting police time is an offence under Section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 when someone knowingly makes TO ANY PERSON (not just the police) a false report" which:

• Shows that a criminal offence has been committed,
• Creates apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or
• Indicates that they have information material to any police inquiry.

Which means that if someone was to tell the HSE that a scaffolder  were for example not applying WAH  so putting people at risk and it turns out they were in fact complaint then an offence would be committed. Simply reporting something a RIDDOR will not come into this as (and I’ll say this again) a RIDDOR is not an admission of liability or culpability. A RIDDOR, by itself, doesn’t mean that any crime has taken place.

it may waste the HSE time but it has not involved or wasted police time, so the offence does not apply.  There must be a police involvement and their time must be wasted, not sure how over reporting RIDDOR would include  a police involvement.    Even mis-reporting of our examples scaffolder may be malicious, may be vexatious but not a waste of police time.