Landlord gets Suspended Prison Sentence for Fire Safety failures

A landlord has received a suspended sentence following various failures. Following a fire in March 2009 it has been reported that the landlord who owned a house of multiple occupation (or HMO) has received a 6-month suspended prison sentence and been ordered to pay £10,000 in costs. Following the blaze, fire safety investigators found several breaches of Fire Safety Legislation (the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005) at the building. These breaches included included not having suitable fire doors installed and not conducting a sufficient fire safety risk assessment.

Steve Turek (the assistant commissioner for fire safety regulation at the London Fire Brigade) commented:

"This verdict sends out a clear message that if landlords ignore fire safety then they will face serious penalties. [The Landlord] was given plenty of time to improve fire safety inside the property but failed to comply. The London Fire Brigade works hard to make companies and individuals understand their responsibilities under fire safety law and only uses prosecution as a last resort."


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RIDDOR - A change not in the consultation

The HSE have recently closed their Consultation on changes to RIDDOR and, almost immediately, have announced a change to RIDDOR (without consultation).

From September this year, work-related injuries and incidents that are reportable under RIDDOR will have to be notified to the HSE by its website. It is understood that over half of reportable injuries are already notified to the HSE through the website and that this proportion has been increasing steadily over the past seven years.

The reporting of fatal and major incidents will still be able to be done by phone, in recognition of the need for a more personal response in such circumstances.

Fall through a fragile roof - serious injury

A father and daughter who own and run a farm in Hertfordshire have been fined after an employee fell through a fragile barn roof and suffered multiple fractures.

In August 2010, two employees were cleaning the roof of a barn by standing on scaffold boards placed over the roof and brushing the area with brooms (as they had been instructed by their employers). The asbestos cement roof cracked and one of the employees fell 5m onto the concrete floor below. He suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis and ribs and was unable to walk for several months.

After the hearing an HSE Inspector said:

Working at height without any safety precautions in place will always put employees at risk. In this case there was an added risk as the surface the men were working on was fragile. Standards for working on fragile roofs are well-established and extensive guidance is available on HSE's website.

This incident could easily have been avoided if these had been followed. Falls from height are among the biggest causes of workplace deaths in the UK and the outcome of this incident could have been even more serious.

Last year, more than 4,000 workers suffered major injuries as the result of falls from height and 12 workers lost their lives.

The employers pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 9(2) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and each were fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £2,083 in costs between them.

Are You Responsible for Fire Safety?

If you are responsible for fire safety, do you know what you are responsible for?

The responsible person is someone who has control (or a degree of control) over the premises or fire-prevention systems within the premises. If you are the responsible person, you must make sure that everyone who uses your premises can escape if there is a fire. You need to consider anyone who might be on your premises, including employees, visitors or members of the public. You need to pay particular attention to those who may need special help, such as elderly or disabled people or children.

You must:

- carry out a fire-risk assessment and identify possible dangers and risks
- think about who might be particularly at risk (including disabled employees or people working with flammable substances)
- avoid and/or reduce the risk from fire, as far as is reasonably possible
- implement suitable fire precautions to deal with any risks that remain
- make sure there is protection if you use or store flammable or explosive materials have a plan to deal with emergencies
- record your findings and review them as and when necessary

As the responsible person, you must ensure that the fire-risk assessment is carried although you may appoint some other competent person to do the actual assessment.

The enforcing authority (usually the local fire authority) must be satisfied with your fire safety arrangements. If they are not, they will tell you what you need to do. If they find major problems they may serve an enforcement notice on your business requiring you to improve safety (or they can even restrict the use of your premises or close them altogether in certain circumstances).

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Innocent until proven guilty? Or Section 40 HASAWA?

One point that I'm covering on certain Health and Safety Training courses is Section 40 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.  We are generally of the opinion that we are innocent until proven guilty. In the case of Health and Safety, this is not always the case. It is often the case that we need to (be able to) prove our innocence!


Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 - Section 40: Onus of proving limits of what is practicable, etc.
In any proceedings for an offence under any of the relevant statutory provisions consisting of a failure to comply with a duty or requirement to do something "so far as is practicable", or "so far as is reasonably practicable", or to use the "best practicable means" to do something, it shall be for the accused to prove (as the case may be) that it was not practicable or not reasonably practicable to do more than was in fact done to satisfy the duty or requirement, or that there was no better practicable means than was in fact used to satisfy the duty or requirement.


What does this mean?
In real terms it means that it is not for the prosecution to prove guilt, but for the defence to show that they are not guilty. Ouch! How are you set up to demonstrate that you have reduced the risks "to as low a level as is reasonably practicable"?


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