Hi All, 

I am facing a group of difficult engineers who are not understanding why I want to observe them completing a job in order to write the SSOW, I have a meeting with them and want to put across how important it is I ensure how they are completing the job is safe. 

Does anyone know of a case where an employee has been fined personally for breach WAH regulations. There are quite a few in the construction industry, however I'm looking for a manufacturing one or warehousing. 

In my opinion, I think that your first priority is to have an open dialogue and talk though the works methodology and potential hazards, before putting a SSOW together. This should be done in conjucntion with existing regulations and industry best practice.

I don't think carrying out the works before assessing the hazards and risks should ever be considered an option.

Hi Sian

I'm with Mr Brightside.

Stick to the positive reasons, rather than threat of prosecution or any other sanction.

You could look for prosecutions but you wouldn't find many.

So, you go to the HSE website (assuming in GB, though you could probably use GB information to inform other geographies) then search for Prosecutions.

Which will take you to a link to the HSE prosecutions database.

There are two of these. One covers prosecutions that have been completed with convictions (Not guilty outcomes are NOT included) more than 9 weeks before the time of your search (That 9 weeks allows for appeals to be instituted) and up to 1 year before your search.

The other deals with cases completed between 1 and 10 years ago. The "history" database.

Note that many cases against individuals would be removed from the history database due to convictions becoming "spent".

Without looking it up I can't even remember what number Regulation in WAH puts a duty on an employee, but let's suppose it is number N.

So then on each of the databases you want to select Advanced Search.

Then BREACHES instead of default CASES which means that you can search by specific legislative breaches.

So, then you can select Regulation - with WAH being one of the options.

Then Regulation Number - so you are asked to put in the number - in this case N.

Then search and find very little.

You can also do the same for breaches of Sections 7 and 8 of HSWA.

Probably a nil return for Section 8 and a very small number of Section 7 prosecutions, and it might be that whoever has done the data entry has typed in a Summary of the case which might say that the prosecution involved work at height. Many of the entries have the free text box for Summary left blank.