Industrial Health and Safety: Coronavirus
(asked on 11th March 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many covid-19 related complaints the Health and Safety Executive has received in each month since March 2020; and what proportion of those complaints resulted in (a) investigation, (b) improvement notices and (c) fines .
Since March 2020, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has received 21752 complaints (or ‘workplace concerns’) relating to Covid-19. Of these, 6240 - assessed as being higher risk - were assigned to regulatory operational staff for investigation.* The remainder were dealt with by HSE’s Concerns and Advice Team. The breakdown is provided in the table below.
HSE does not have the power to issue fines. However, where a defendant is convicted of breaching health and safety at work law, the court may impose sanctions including fines, imprisonment and disqualification for directors. HSE will recover its costs where material breaches of health and safety at work law are identified.
Month / Year | Total Covid-19 concerns | Number investigated* by regulatory operational staff (% of total concerns) | Number resulting in verbal advice | Number resulting in formal written correspondence | Number resulting in improvement notices |
March 2020 | 331 | - | - | - | - |
April 2020 | 3721 | 1717 (46%) | 411 | 46 | 1 |
May 2020 | 2060 | 987 (48%) | 273 | 42 | 8 |
June 2020 | 1247 | 552 (44%) | 147 | 38 | 10 |
July 2020 | 1269 | 397 (31%) | 128 | 41 | 4 |
August 2020 | 1016 | 302 (30%) | 75 | 23 | 4 |
September 2020 | 1154 | 413 (36%) | 124 | 40 | 6 |
October 2020 | 1520 | 498 (33%) | 172 | 33 | 1 |
November 2020 | 2347 | 502 (21%) | 167 | 41 | 2 |
December 2020 | 1203 | 248 (21%) | 59 | 20 | 0 |
January 2021 | 3116 | 458 (15%) | 144 | 33 | 3 |
February 2021 | 1587 | 150 (9%) | 55 | 14 | 1 |
March 2021 | 191 | 16 (8%) | 7 | 1 | 0 |
Totals | 21752 | 6240 (29%) | 1762 | 372 | 40 |
* The figures relate to concern investigations only and do not include investigations carried out in response to reports received under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR).
Note: Figures were obtained from HSE’s live operational database on 12th March 2021 and are subject to change, e.g. as there can be a delay of up to ten working days before data is uploaded to the system.