Centre for Corporate Accountability slams HSE
May 9, 2008
The safety charity, the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA), has slammed the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failing to publicise "the vast majority" of its convictions — including those involving deaths.
The CCA says its new research shows that in 2007, the HSE only issued a press release following 33% of its cases — 167 cases out of 502 — that resulted in a conviction. In 335 of these cases, it did not issue a press release.
The safety charity says it is well known that one of the main purposes of health and safety prosecutions is to act as a deterrent against other employers from committing similar offences.
Yet, in 84 of the conviction cases that involved a death, the HSE only issued a press release following 45 of them — 54% of cases. In 39 death-related convictions, the HSE did not issue a press release.
David Bergman, Executive Director of the CCA, said, "The failure of the HSE to publicise its convictions is simply extraordinary. The HSE’s level of conviction has declined 54% since 1999 — convictions are increasingly rare. Yet the HSE fails to take the trouble to publicise even the convictions it has obtained."
The HSE defended its low level of press releases by telling the CCA that press officers often used other ways to publicise convictions, such as direct phone calls, briefings and email alerts.
The CCA has written to the Chief Executive of the HSE, Geoffrey Podger, requesting that immediate steps are taken to ensure that "every conviction results in a press release unless there are very particular reasons why this should not happen".
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