RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

March 9 , 2006
CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER WARNING TO POOR PERFORMERS

RoSPA has welcomed this week’s announcement that the Government is determined to press ahead with proposals to create a new offence of corporate manslaughter.

Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “The Government has quite rightly accepted many of the recommendations of the recent joint Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Select Committee enquiry to which we submitted evidence.

“Establishing a new offence which will enable corporations to be found guilty of manslaughter - as opposed to their directors as individuals - has not been easy. In practice, the key test will remain how to demonstrate evidence that an accidental death was due to management system failures, whether these were at the board or the supervisory level. Juries will need to be convinced that standards of health and safety risk management in such cases fell ‘far below’ what might reasonably have been expected.

“RoSPA agrees that prosecution for the offence should be reserved for the most blatant cases of health and safety management failure. Health and safety law should continue to be used to prosecute when employers have failed in their duty to safeguard lives, limbs and health.”

He said a new corporate manslaughter offence would help to close the justice gap for families in the aftermath of tragedies which could have been easily prevented. But it would also help to focus the attention of directors, particularly in organisations which were poor health and safety performers.

RoSPA welcomed the recent decision of the Health and Safety Commission to examine the case for clearer health and safety duties for directors and the possibility of disqualification for H&S offences. However, this would take time, and the immediate priority must be to complete a major update of HSE’s existing guidance for directors (INGD 343 – see http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg343.pdf ). At present this was far too sketchy. RoSPA has produced practical advice on how directors can get involved in leading H&S management ‘at the sharp end’ (visit http://www.rospa.com/occupationalsafety/bttf/index.htm ).

Roger Bibbings said: “The new offence is an important step in the right direction, but equally it must not lead to inappropriately risk averse behaviour. Those directors and organisations that take their H&S responsibilities seriously will have nothing to fear, even if, despite everything, things go tragically wrong. It would be quite wrong, for example, for corporate manslaughter to be used as an excuse for board members to resign, overseas companies not to invest in the UK or for organisations to try to ban things because they might be dangerous.”