The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which becomes law on April 6, will mean a company and its senior managers can be held liable for deaths in the workplace.  Research by employment law firm Peninsula suggests 79% of employers have taken no steps to prepare for the new law. But do you need to? Tom Whitney finds out.

Workplace fatalities are not as rare as you might think. According to the Health and Safety Executive, 241 employees and 90 members of the public lost their lives because of workplace accidents in the UK between 2006 and 2007. Although the majority of employee deaths occurred in the agriculture and construction industries, some 85 happened in the service sector.

Currently, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers whose negligence leads to the death of an employee or a member of the public can only be convicted where there is sufficient evidence to prove individual members of the senior management team were guilty.

“Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, individuals can already be held liable for negligence, but the business as a whole may get away with it,” explains Croner Consulting senior health consultant Nasar Farooq.

The new Act

“The new Act – which will only apply to limited companies – will change the law so that the company as a whole or a group of its senior managers can be blamed for any negligence,” he adds.

From April 6, the Corporate Manslaughter (to apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Corporate Homicide Act (Scotland only) will give the courts the power to decide whether collective failings of a company’s senior management team amount to a gross breach of the company’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its employees and the public.

The Government has stated examples of such breaches will include failure to:
• ensure that staff have adequate health and safety training
• check equipment is in a safe condition
• make sure that lifts are appropriately maintained or that adequate fire precautions have been taken.

Prosecutions will be of the corporate body and not individuals, although individuals may still be liable for prosecution under separate health and safety laws.

“Companies found guilty of corporate manslaughter will face an unlimited fine, as well as a remedial order requiring the company to address the cause of the fatality,” warns Farooq.
 
Health and safety policy

“Companies that already comply with existing health and safety legislation have nothing to fear from the Corporate Manslaughter Act,” says Farooq. “But, as a statement of good intent, it’s a good time for them to review their policies.

“Company directors need to ensure that their health and safety policy is up to date and that it is comprehensive,” he continues. “The board of directors should also accept collective responsibility for managing health and safety in their company. They need to make sure it is a priority on their boardroom agenda.”

By law, you are obliged to have a health and safety policy, and a firm with more than five employees must have it documented.

Most businesses set out their policy in three parts:

• A statement of intent section, which sets out a commitment to manage health and safety.
• An arrangements section, which contains details of how the business is going to achieve the aims set out in its statement of intent.
• An organisation section, which sets out who is responsible for what.

“As long as employers exercise due diligence in managing their health and safety risks, in the event of an accident, they are likely to have most of that duty of care discharged under the law,” concludes Farooq.