Can we make the FFI scheme work better for the construction industry?

Alex Green, chief executive of online H&S app www.handshq.com, argues that the industry doesn’t have access to the full picture on FFI. 

Since its introduction in 2012, the HSE’s fees for intervention scheme has been a controversial one. According to the HSE, it’s a cost-recovery program, but many construction businesses feel the HSE is unfairly filling budget holes and, in the process, damaging HSE’s reputation as the UK’s independent health and safety regulator. So can perceptions of the FFI scheme be improved?

Let’s recap on what we know about FFI’s performance so far:

• At the time of last year’s independent panel review, the HSE had issued invoices totaling over £10,680,000 across the first 18 months of the programme.
• Manufacturing and construction made up 73% of all inspections and 65% of all fees (£4,190,000 and £2,831,000, respectively).
• While some fees ran to over £10,000, the average invoice issued is around £500.
• Water and waste management had the highest average invoice per 1,000 workers at £1,953.
• 66% of business owners who had an inspection under FFI stated that their interactions with inspectors were “as collaborative as before” FFI.

Since the outset the HSE has continued to publish bi-monthly statistics on FFI, covering: the total number of FFI notices issues; the number of companies that have received invoices; and the number of invoices in various sectors of the economy – agriculture, construction, extractive utilities, manufacturing, services and waste/waste management.

Unfortunately, there are no statistics available that break down the distribution of FFI fees by business size. In addition, the difficulty in discovering FFI-related information has meant that many in the industry are confused about the scheme. This is especially true of small construction businesses, some of whom aren’t aware of the existence of the programme until an inspector arrives on site.

Last year’s independent panel review concluded that FFI was being applied fairly. However, some small business owners believed they were being unfairly targeted because they had fewer resources to fight a potential fine or fee – they’re much more likely to pay the fine to get on with their work.

If small businesses are likely be more significantly affected by fees due to their smaller overall revenue, an emphasis on the transparency of FFI and it being applied evenly across businesses of different sizes could go a long way to counter this perception.

The triennial review of the FFI scheme provides high-level insights into the effectiveness of the scheme, yet it could be far more useful to businesses if they could view up-to-date metrics on the reasons and the frequency behind such breaches.

In contrast, a collection of this data is already available for HSE’s enforcement notices albeit some sleuthing is needed to find the database on HSE’s website.

The enforcement notices website makes it easy to search through enforcement notice records by the recipient’s name, notice number, industry, work activity, notice summary, location, and even regulation paragraph, allowing companies to get detailed information on why they or another company has received an enforcement notice.

Why not make a similar resource available for FFI? We could use this data to better understand how businesses are still failing in their approach to H&S, rather than waiting every three months for an update on how the overall scheme is performing. It’s especially surprising considering that material breaches pose a greater imminent risk than most offences that warrant enforement notices.

We’re missing an opportunity to learn more about the FFI process and how businesses could better manage their work, and also apply some pressure on the worst offending companies. The data HSE already collects under FFI could also be incredibly valuable for SMEs that don’t have management systems in place but are looking for ways to benchmark their safe working practices.  

The review panel stated that FFI is being applied fairly, but businesses sentiments seem to tell a different story. The primary way in which the HSE can leverage the FFI programme for the benefit of companies is by making more information easily available to the public.

By creating a database similar to the enforcement notices website, including information on specific companies, reasons behind breaches, the frequency of breaches, and the penalties imposed as a result, the HSE could help construction businesses better understand FFI, as well as improve their working practices to reduce the chances that they’ll be penalised under the FFI scheme.

An FFI database would go a long way in the construction industry to help improve the perception of fairness for the scheme whilst simultaneously making construction sites safer through the sharing of these statistics.

Alexander Green is the CEO of HANDS HQ; an app used by hundreds of UK construction companies to create the most accurate risk assessments and method statements in minutes.