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Establish Corporate Responsibility in Criminal Law for Manslaughter and Bodily Harm

Whilst directors and chief executives are liable to prosecution and imprisonment for crimes and misdemeanours involving money, it is claimed to be extremely difficult to mount a successful prosecution against the corporate officers even when breaches of health and safety law have been aggravated by gross negligence on the part of the company or organisation responsible.

The Law Commission has made a number of recommendations in this area, including the new crime of corporate killing, but they do not go far enough. The Hazards Campaign wants the government to establish a specialised investigation and prosecution unit, staffed by well trained personnel to investigate workplace deaths, serious injuries and industrial diseases. This specialised unit should be clearly separated from the advisory function of the HSE, established in a separate directorate with a regional structure.

Company Law should be extended to include, as the responsibility of named directors, the health and safety performance of the company or corporate body. This would enable the identification of the senior people responsible rather than the present tendency to prosecute employees and managers way down the line of real responsibility. It would allow custodial sentences to be imposed for offences, as well as fines on organisations and the suspension or disqualification of directors.

Sentences allowed under the Health and Safety at Work Act and subsequent regulations should include more custodial sentences for negligent employers. Custodial sentences are essential since despite recent pronouncements by the Law Lords that fines for health and safety offences should be substantially higher, experience shows that fines are insufficient to deter employers from breaking the law often on a serial basis. Existing penalties are failing to reduce the deaths, serious injury and disease caused by work.

There is also a need for more openness and accountability about the whole process following a workplace death, major injury or illness. Reports of the investigations of all major injuries and deaths at work should to be given to the worker or their family. The Hazards Campaign also demands that the obligation on the Crown Prosecution Service to meet the representatives of bereaved families to explain why they are not prosecuting be honoured in every case.

Make Publication of Health and Safety Performance in Annual Reports Compulsory

Make Declaration of Insurers Compulsory

Companies should have to publish their record on health and safety, just as they do on profits and performance. Companies should also have to publish the name of their insurers, to prevent them from evading the responsibility to hold Employee Liability Insurance and to make it easier for sufferers of occupational illness to secure compensation from the insurers. The Hazards Campaign calls for company law to be amended to require this.