The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recovered £4.5 million through its Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme in 2024/25, charging 5,143 businesses for health and safety breaches. With an average cost of £875 per business, this highlights the financial impact of non-compliance.
What is a Fee for Intervention?
Fee for Intervention (FFI) is the HSE’s cost-recovery scheme which allows the regulator to charge duty holders when breaches of health and safety law are identified. The current hourly rate stands at £184, covering the time HSE inspectors spend investigating breaches, taking enforcement action, and providing advice following non-compliance.
When would an FFI be charged?
FFI is charged when inspectors identify a “material breach” of health and safety law, typically involving failures to adequately control significant risks (such as working at height) or comply with fundamental safety management duties (such as creating RAMS).
The True Cost of Non-Compliance
The average FFI charge of £875 is only the beginning. Businesses facing FFI charges typically incur substantial additional costs:
- Senior management time addressing breaches and liaising with HSE (often 20-40 hours at £50-100/hour)
- Emergency implementation of corrective measures and revised documentation
- Project delays and potential contract penalties
- Damage to reputation resulting in lost tender opportunities
- Increased insurance premiums (often 15-30% increases for 3-5 years)
- Potential removal from approved contractor lists
A typical FFI incident can easily result in total business costs exceeding £5,000-£10,000 when all factors are considered. For serious breaches requiring multiple HSE visits, total costs can reach £20,000 or more.
How HazardCo Can Help You Avoid FFI Charges
- Risk Assessments & Method Statements: HazardCo develops thorough, site-specific documentation that meets HSE standards and addresses the hazards on your projects.
- Site Reviews: HazardCo app allows you to complete site reviews efficiently, identify potential issues in real-time, and implement suitable corrective measures to maintain compliance.
- Documentation Retention: The HazardCo app retains all documentation digitally in a secure, cloud-based system, ensuring your records are easily accessible whenever you need them.
- Plant/Machinery pre start checks: Use HazardCo to log checks for fluids, leaks, safety guards, warning signs, attachments, hydraulics, controls, brakes, and tyres, ensuring equipment is fit for use and documenting compliance digitally for easy access and record-keeping.
- Ongoing Support – HazardCo provides expert guidance when you need it, preventing costly mistakes.
- Induction Records – use HazardCo to log site inductions.
- Site Awareness – HazardCo shows you who is on your site, when they arrived and when they leave.
- Contractor Due Diligence – HazardCo can help with your pre-qualification before your contractors arrive onsite, including checking insurance.
Key takeaway: Investing in proper health and safety management with HazardCo costs significantly less than facing FFI charges and the associated business disruption. Full transparency, the yearly HazardCo membership can cost almost half the average FFI charge businesses are facing.
Need help ensuring your business maintains robust health and safety compliance?
Contact HazardCo to discuss how we can support your organisation in meeting its legal obligations and avoiding Fee for Intervention charges. Don’t give them a reason to look.
A recent prosecution has highlighted how, even when a death is not caused directly by Health & Safety failings, but – neglect of Health & Safety can still land a site manager in court.
This case emerged after a worker was discovered dead on site – the death was from natural causes, not a fall or structural collapse. But, when inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited after the RIDDOR report was logged, they found a catalogue of serious failings across the site.
At HazardCo, we wanted to bring this to your attention as it’s so important that your Health & Safety processes are secure across the entire site, not just where you are working.
The Prosecution – Facts
- A construction client, responsible for a project in Hackney, London, was found guilty of breaching the CDM Regulations (2015).
- The case came to light after a worker was sadly found dead on site. His death was later confirmed to be from natural causes – not the result of a Health & Safety breach. But once a RIDDOR report was filed and the HSE attended, inspectors uncovered a wide range of serious safety failings across the project. What they found showed a site where risks had been left to build up unchecked, long before anyone arrived to investigate.
- The builder was sentenced to a twelve-week prison term (suspended for one year) and ordered to pay £10,000 in costs.
Why this matters: it wasn’t just ‘one error’ – it was a culture of not taking Health & Safety seriously.
Essentially, what happened to cause HSE to visit the site did not land the builder in a situation with the conviction and costs, it was what they uncovered over a period of five separate visits, that hadn’t caused any incidents or accidents (yet!).
The HSE doesn’t look kindly on clients who don’t set up proper safeguards. Clients – whether a private individual or a commercial developer – are legally obliged to put in place “suitable arrangements for managing the project” so that those doing the work can carry it out safely.
What Builders, Contractors, and trades should take from this:
- Accidents happen, they happen everyday – and no one is expecting anyone to be perfect. Sites can be dangerous places and the expectation is that reasonable measures and risk management is in place to keep your crew safe.
- Don’t assume everything is fine and don’t wait for ‘something to happen’.
- Taking time and proper care on Health & Safety isn’t wasting resources or money – it’s investing in prevention. After all, enforcement action (and reputational damage) can hit harder than logging on to the HazardCo app and doing the job right.
What’s HazardCo and how can it help me do the right thing?
HazardCo is a Health & Safety company, aiming to embed safe working into the culture of construction sites. Our space is primarily small to medium sized businesses, offering a user-friendly app with guided and templated RAMS, a Construction Phase Plan generator, clear processes, site checklists, a toolbox talk library and more. At HazardCo, we’re on your side and we want to help UK builders do Health & Safety right, without complication and affordably. The last thing we want to do at HazardCo is scare builders in the UK – we say this all the time, we’re on your side.
Get in touch with us to see if we can help you.
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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recovered £4.5 million through its Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme in 2024/25, charging 5,143 businesses for health and safety breaches. With an average...
A recent prosecution has highlighted how, even when a death is not caused directly by Health & Safety failings, but - neglect of Health & Safety can still land a site manager in court....
