In the first quarter of the year, we published a newsletter that discussed the costs to businesses after being prosecuted for not following the legal requirements in place to keep their workforces and other relevant people safe.
The total so far this year (to the end of June) for prosecutions regarding health and safety failings has already reached £21,085,729.00, plus costs of £520,447.45 (in 2024 this was £39.75 million in total).
This week, we are highlighting the other methodology HSE has in their armoury to penalise those employers and responsible persons who fail to live up to their legal requirement to keep people who can be affected by their work activities safe, and that is through the Fee for Intervention (FFI).
What is the Fee for Intervention (FFI)?
This started in 2012, with an original rate of £124 per hour. By 2022, the HSE had raised £127,361,462 and 70 pence.
Currently (in July 2025), FFI is set at £183.00 per hour (or £30.50 for each 10 minutes).
This is an invoiceable fee, payable to the HSE (monthly) for them needing to intervene in how work is being conducted, because in the HSE’s eyes, health and safety law is not being applied suitably or sufficiently, with a material breach of health and safety legislation occurring.
To officially inform the responsible person of the breach and what this means, the Inspector can issue a Notice of Contravention (NoC), in the form of either an Improvement Notice or a Prohibition Notice. These give the employer a chance to:
- Improve their safety standards whilst being allowed to continue to work, or if the risk of harm is serious enough.
- Prohibit the work from continuing until safety has been better assured.
Whilst issuing the notice, the Inspector should explain what is being done wrong and provide advice to put it right.
This INFORMATION (what is wrong and how it can be fixed) COMES AT A PRICE…… FFI.
Breaches of the Law
Despite laws already being in place (2024 was the 50th anniversary of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act), they are still being flouted. The Health, Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2022 say that a fee is payable to the HSE where:
- A person is contravening or has contravened health and safety laws;
- An Inspector is of the opinion that the person is in Material Breach of legislation or has been and notifies that person in writing of that opinion.
A Material Breach is something considered by the Inspector to be serious enough that they need to formally notify the business that action is required to be taken. If the Inspector gives out a notification of contravention (NoC), the fee becomes payable. The NoC must include:
- The law that the Inspector considers has been broken.
- The reason(s) for their opinion;
- Notification that a fee is payable to HSE.
Where an Inspector simply gives advice, whether verbally or in writing, then nothing is charged for this advice.
Dutyholders this fee applies to are:
- Employers;
- The self-employed who put others at risk;
- Any public or limited company;
- General, limited and limited liability partnerships;
- Crown and public bodies.
What is the cost?
As previously stated, the current rate of FFI is £183.00 per hour. To put this in context:
- An inspection resulting in an email or letter being issued (at six hours) would be £1,098
- An inspection with a notice being issued (at 10.5 hours) works out at £1,921.50
- An investigation taking 4 days (30 hours @ 7.5 hours per day) would total £5,490.00
Pre-pandemic, HSE was issuing approximately 9,000 notices annually, with 7,075 issued in 2019 / 20, 2,929 in 20 / 21 (pandemic), and in 21 / 22 it jumped back up to 6,900.
- 9,000 notices at just 6 hours FFI would equate to £9,882,000 income for HSE;
- At 10.5 hours per notice, it would be £17,293.500;
- 30 hours per notice would be £49,410,000.
If we extrapolate further and average out the notices to 3,000 for each type above, this will still raise a whopping total of £25,528,500 just in FFI. When this is added to the fines issued by the courts in 2024 (£38,237,835 and £1.5 million in costs), we could be looking at a minimum annual spend for business of £63 million, just because they are not doing what is legally and ethically prudent to keep people safe.
So, in these times, the message should be:
Can businesses afford to ignore their health and safety duties?
Need help with this or another H&S issue? Please do not hesitate to contact us.