Thought that would be easy to find - but your right i cannot find it inteh regs or any HSE guidance. I did find this.

Paying your invoice: Invoices are usually issued in January, March, May, July, September and November. You must pay any invoice we send you within 30 days.

So you only get 30 days to pay but no time given for them to notify you that i could find.

Again, don't believe there is a set time line or 'Statute of limitations' as Peter alluded to.

In my case, there were several emails following the visit, requests for documentation, phone calls and then a phone call advising that the NoC was coming three weeks after the visit.

Call me an old cynic, but all the while they are emailing and phoning and reviewing documetns the clock is running so they're charging....

Found this;

From https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse41.pdf

HSE Enforcement Policy Statement October 2015 – V1, page 5:

8.2 Where non-compliance has been identified, our inspectors will clearly

and promptly explain the decision taken, their reasons, and the actions

required to achieve compliance. They will discuss reasonable timescales with

the duty holder and explain what will happen if they fail to comply.

 (my bold).

Thanks to all of you that have responded above & apologises for not posting for a week - I was on holiday.

Let me give you a little more meat on the bone:

Back in August one of our expereinced team leaders sustained an injury when doing something she was not meant to do & we had not foreseen anybody doing, this resulted in her being away from work for a number of weeks - hence RIDDOR

We investigated and actioned a few recommendations

Factory Inspector then requests more details of the incident and pays us a visit - on site for 3 hours, spent 20 minutes reviewing the incident and the rest of the time sniffing around the site, accompanied by yours truly.

He requests some photographs and documentary evidence.

A few weeks later, he informs us verbally that HSE will not take any further action 

10 days ago, we recived an invoice for over £1,500 FFI - we have no issue paying this, but...

As RVThompson has quoted 

8.2 Where non-compliance has been identified, our inspectors will clearly and promptly explain the decision taken, their reasons, and the actions required to achieve compliance. They will discuss reasonable timescales with the duty holder and explain what will happen if they fail to comply.

The HSE website, section What is FFI? states:

What the law says

The Health and Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2021 say that a fee is payable to HSE if:

• a person is contravening or has contravened health and safety laws; and
• an inspector is of the opinion that the person is or has done so, and notifies the person in writing of that opinion.

What is a material breach?

A material breach is something which an inspector considers serious enough that they need to formally write to the business requiring action to be taken to deal with the material breach. If the inspector gives you a notification of contravention (NoC) after their visit, you'll have to pay a fee. The NoC must include:

• the law that the inspector considers has been broken
• the reason(s) for their opinion
• notification that a fee is payable to HSE

Where an inspector simply gives you advice, either verbal or written, you won't have to pay anything for this advice.

I have checked again today and the inspector has NOT yet informed the company in writing, (or verbally) of his opinion  

Apparently we have 30 days from the date of the invoice to pay - however, I have told our finance department not to pay until we receive the "notification of contravention" from the HSE. 

Should I await the written notice, or go that further step and contact the HSE and formally ask them for the report? (but we than have no excuse for not paying !!! :-)  I am curious to discover what material breaches he now considers we fell short of.

As an aside, I am bitterly disappointed in the actions of the inspector, in my 30+ years as a H&S professional who dealt with the HSE regularly in my early days, the standards seem to have dropped considerably since our last encounters some 15 years ago. During his visit there was little advice provided on any substandard issues, very little evidence gathered during the visit and over three months for us to continue with the unsafe "acts or conditions" before only recieving an invoice for FFI.

This visit by the HSE, as well as the total waste of 2 hours completing my IOSH Blueprint has seriously made me reconsider my future within this profession, some serious thinking over christmas 

Update:

After we contacted the HSE, the documentation regarding the Notification of Contravention was e-mailed to us.

There were 5 alleged breaches contravened - the 1st was related to a RIDDOR accident, which we had identified in our internal investigation and resolved. The inspector identified an issue that we considered incorrect.

The 2nd related to some commissioning work for one of our lines that we hope to bring into operation in March 2023 and related to an issue that we hope to address in the final stages of the deign phase when the engineering team have amended the equipment to make it work - again we already had plans in place to resolve this. He did not gather evidence to justify the "intervention"

The 3rd and 4th breaches were related to insufficient protection, again based on opinion (not measurements) - our enginering team have checked and the level of protection is twice as high as those stipulated in industry guidelines.

The 5th breach related to protecting against vehicular risks - again the national 3rd party engineering team whe installed the current protection have confirmed that their design is to the national standards.

To summarise, 5 alleged breaches, no proof provided by HSE + no "intervention" = £1500 fee.

Estimated legal cost to fight this is >£3000 according to our legal advisors, therefore we will gracefully pay the invoice and respond to the inspector in a few months time and inform him that we have complied with the requirements he has requested and we can all go our merry way. 

Morning Evans

Perhaps time to put HSE on the spot BEFORE you pay the £1500 but also before you rack up £X000 on legal fees.

Bear in mind that if you were to fight this legally and win, you would probably be in a strong position to ask for your legal fees to be footed by the HSE and, of course, HSE should know this, if you present them with hard evidence to rebut all the alleged breaches.

There were 5 alleged breaches contravened - the 1st was related to a RIDDOR accident, which we had identified in our internal investigation and resolved. The inspector identified an issue that we considered incorrect.

You probably need to find out who the Inspector's boss is (if you haven't already) and write to them.

So, you could spell out why you think that the Inspector's opinion is not valid and invite HSE to explain why it IS.

The 2nd related to some commissioning work for one of our lines that we hope to bring into operation in March 2023 and related to an issue that we hope to address in the final stages of the deign phase when the engineering team have amended the equipment to make it work - again we already had plans in place to resolve this. He did not gather evidence to justify the "intervention"

So, you appear to have already identified an issue BEFORE the Inspector turned up and have a solution in planning. If so it is difficult to see how this is a breach UNLESS the Inspector has valid reason to say that e.g. you might have failed in your CDM designer duties (if CDM doesn't apply exactly the same principles could apply as implicit duties under HSWA) - seems to me that the Inspector is on very weak ground to try and defend an opinion of "material breach".

The 3rd and 4th breaches were related to insufficient protection, again based on opinion (not measurements) - our enginering team have checked and the level of protection is twice as high as those stipulated in industry guidelines.

So, spell this out.

The 5th breach related to protecting against vehicular risks - again the national 3rd party engineering team whe installed the current protection have confirmed that their design is to the national standards.

Ditto.

HSE will not want this to go into a battle and the prospect of lots of negative coverage if their Inspector's actions are found wanting.

So, you probably don't need to get the cheque book out to pay your lawyers. Just put some pressure on HSE to back down.

Worth googling the Inspector to find out whatever you can about their qualifications, experience etc. This Inspector is probably NOT an engineer and if they are, probably not from the appropriate engineering discipline, whereas I assume that all the engineers who you have on the case are suitable for what they are doing. (Yes that is an assumption!).

Also bear in mind that even HSE Specialist Inspectors can find themselves out of their comfort zone. Many years ago, when I was working as an HSE Inspector my Specialist Inspector was trying to go along with a duty holder's comment that part of a structure "had'n't suffered from any signs of 'fatigue' yet" - but they were a mechanical engineer and we had all had sight of a report from a Professor of Structural Engineering that had commented that the alterations that had been made to the structure were simply such as to move where the point of failure via fatigue would be compared to when the previous failure by fatigue had happened.

So, my money was on the independent structural engineer and NOT with my colleague!!

This particular structure had failed resulting in fatality, then failed again nearly 20 years later with injuries. I was not about to agree to the duty holder ignoring the advice of an expert.

The front line Inspector always has to play the Jack of All Trades, and is rarely an expert in any of them.

From what you have written, your Inspector seems to have got it wrong and I thnk that their boss needs to be told so that they have the chance to pull the plug and protect HSE's reputation!

I realise that your employer may simply decide that paying the £1500 is the easy option. But if you do that, what will you do when something similar happens at the next visit?

Good luck, Peter