Rail safety enforcement
| 1 2 |
Issuing enforcement notices and, in addition, prosecuting duty holders (where this is deemed to be appropriate) are only two of a range of tools at the disposal of the Inspectorate and are used principally to underpin or stimulate action by duty holders. ORR’s aim is firm but fair enforcement of health and safety law, and it is heartening to note that we are finding that many deficiencies can be dealt with before formal enforcement becomes necessary.
In 2007/08 HMRI issued 22 enforcement notices: 16 improvement notices and 6 prohibition notices.
This compares with a total of 28 notices issued in 2006/07.
Safety enforcement policy statement
Our health and safety enforcement policy statement is an important document that explains the purposes and principles of ORR’s enforcement of health and safety law.
We have adopted the same policy as the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) as this approach is well understood by our inspectors and stakeholders and will help ensure a seamless transition of responsibility for health and safety enforcement between our two organisations.
We are grateful for stakeholders’ comments on our proposal to adopt this policy and these can be found at (link). We are committed to reviewing the policy in the light of experience and will involve stakeholders in this process.
In addition we will shortly be concluding the work on our economic enforcement policy; the differences between the two policies reflect the very different legislation involved. It will be important, as part of the future review process, to consider the common features of these two policies and identify enforcement issues that have both economic and health and safety considerations.
We would welcome stakeholders’ engagement with the policy review process in due course.
Prosecutions
In 2007/08, there were two prosecutions heard, resulting in fines totalling £35,000, and costs of £13,536.
Enforcement action 2003/04-2007/08
|
2002/03 |
2003/04 |
2004/05 |
2005/06 |
2006/07 |
2007/08 |
|
|
Enforcement notices |
81 |
39 |
13 |
16 |
23 |
16 |
| Prohibition notices | 22 | 17 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
|
Total Enforcement notices |
103 | 56 | 18 | 22 | 28 | 22 |
|
Prosecutions heard |
11 |
23 |
20 |
2 |
6 |
2 |
| Total fines (£) | 183,500 | 552,750 | 14,392,600 | 3,652,600 | 11,019,000 | 35,000 |
| Total costs (£) | 36,375 | 119,076 | 866,441 | 3,507 | 132,770 | 13,536 |
More about enforcement
ORR as the combined health, safety and economic regulator for the railways became a signatory of the Work-related Deaths Protocol (WRDP) with affect from 1 April 2006 when it took on its new safety enforcement responsibilities and follows the principles for liaison set out in the Protocol (please see related links).
ORR has several levels of enforcement action that it can take:
- giving information and advice, including a formal written warning of non-compliance
- enforcement notices (Improvement or Prohibition notices)
- vary exemption conditions
- issue formal cautions
- prosecution
ORR believes in firm but fair enforcement of health and safety law. This is reflected in both ORR’s Enforcement Policy Statement and HSE’s Enforcement Management Model, which ORR has adopted.
Activities or premises not allocated to ORR for enforcement are subject to enforcement by either the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) or Local Authorities according to the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1998 (EA98).
| 1 2 |
