In the United Kingdom there are several crimes that arise from failure to take care of health, safety and welfare at work.
The statutory offences and maximum penalties are:[2] Further, for offences triable on indictment, up to two years' imprisonment may be imposed on a guilty individual where there is (s.33(4)): These penalties are maxima and guideline sentencing practice is published by the Sentencing Guidelines Council.
[3] The maximum fines available for many regulation offences used to be relatively low at the magistrates court, however the Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008,[4] and Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012[5] (which came into force on 16 January 2009 and 12 March 2015 respectively) had the effect of increasing the level of most fines available for magistrates’ courts to an unlimited fine (previously £20,000 for most health and safety offences).
[6][7] The Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 will give a Minister of the Crown the power to introduce, by Statutory Instrument, a system of fixed penalty notices for the section 33 offences.
Offenders can be sentenced, on summary conviction in the Magistrates' Court, to a fine of up to level 4 on the standard scale.
They came into operation on 1 June 2008 and the government of the United Kingdom was required to have established penalties for any breach by 1 December 2008.
A corporation can be convicted on indictment and subjected to an unlimited fine in addition to having to put right its shortcomings and advertise its failures.