In March we reported that the Health and Safety Executive was
planning on postponing the roll out of their new cost recovery
scheme, Fee for Intervention (FFI) to allow time to publish
appropriate guidance prior to implementation. For further
information please click
here to see our previous article.
The HSE have now confirmed that FFI will commence on 1 October 2012
subject to Parliamentary approval. By confirming the date of
implementation and providing guidance the HSE is hoping this will
provide clarity to dutyholders.
The guidance provides information on how the scheme will apply, how
it works and also provides helpful examples of FFI in practice. The
HSE will not charge FFI for work where another fee is already
payable for all or some of that work. This includes offshore oil
and gas production facilities and COMAH sites. Certain categories
of work activities are exempt and whilst the guidance provides
quite a lot of information as to how and when the charges will
apply, the statement that they will be applied where a
"material breach" has occurred may pose more questions
than it answers as it would appear that the decision as to when
such a breach has occurred will be at the discretion of the HSE
inspector. For more information on the scheme and to download the
newly published guidance please click here.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.
The original publication date for this article was 29/06/2012.