CBA: HSE wants a "blank cheque" from chemical industry
31 Oct 2011
London — The Chemical Business Association (CBA) has branded the Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) plans to extend cost recovery as the equivalent of seeking a blank cheque from industry to compensate for cuts in its departmental budget. This would see plant owner/operators charged for any ’material breach’ found by its Inspectors and for any ’formal intervention’ required.
Responding to a HSE consultative document on the process, termed ’Fees for Intervention’, CBA describes the proposals as being ’opaque, lacking fairness, or accountability’. It adds that the ’absence of transparency conclusively reveals the policy objectives of ’Fee for Intervention’ as revenue generation.’
The HSE’s consultative document fails to make clear what precisely constitutes a ’material breach’ or a ’formal intervention’, said the CBA. There is therefore also no identifiable point at which the extended cost recovery regime is triggered, it added.
Under the new regime, HSE plan to recover its costs at the rate of around £1,000 per day (£133 per hour). These figures may be higher if external consultants are employed. There is no indication as to how these rates are calculated - the salary level involved; the basis for overhead recovery; or what consumables are included.
CBA believes that in any extended system of cost recovery there must be genuine accountability. Charges should only be imposed at the formal enforcement notice stage (after an Improvement or Prohibition Notice). This process will also provide a tried and tested appeals process through which companies can challenge HSE’s decisions.
In its consultative document, HSE proposes an internal mechanism to resolve any disputes. However, argues the CBA, this fails to follow the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ statutory guidelines for regulators, which require that all complaints procedures include a final stage to allow disputes to be transferred to an external, independent person or body.
“When the chair of HSE first trailed these proposals, she frankly admitted they were designed to compensate for a 35% cut in the HSE’s budget by 2014,” said CBA chairman, Neville Prior. “Adding unnecessarily to industry’s costs at a time when the Government’s deficit reduction plans are heavily growth-dependent seems self-defeating.
“In a wider context, CBA is concerned that ’Fee for Intervention’ will fundamentally change industry’s perception of HSE: from a regulator respected for its impartiality to an organisation focused on the generation of additional revenue.”
