Health and Safety breaches (FOI)Health and Safety breaches (FOI)
Produced by the Freedom of Information officeAuthored by Government of Jersey and published on
19 August 2019.Prepared internally, no external costs.
Request
A
How many Health and Safety breaches have been recorded in Jersey in the years 2017, 2018 and so far in 2019?
B
How many of these Health and Safety breaches have ended up in court? Can I get the breakdown of figures for the individual years?
C
For the years mentioned, how many fines have been handed out and what is the total cost of the fines for the three years?
D
For each of the years mentioned, what was the highest fine handed out and can we get some details about the case?
Response
The data provided for 2019 is for the period 01 January to 13 August inclusive.
A
This question has been answered on the basis that reference to Health and Safety breaches recorded in Jersey is interpreted as meaning breaches of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 (HSW Law) and subordinate legislation that have resulted in formal enforcement action being taken. This includes the serving of formal legal Enforcement Notices* and / or referral of a case file to the Law Officers’ Dept. (LOD) for consideration by the Attorney General.
* Legal Enforcement Notices
an Improvement Notice (IN) is served when, in the opinion of an Inspector, there is a breach of the health and safety legislation which needs to be remedied within a certain period of time
a prohibition Notice (PN) is served when, in the opinion of an Inspector, there is a risk of serious personal injury and work must be stopped until the appropriate steps are taken to control the risks.
The data is presented in the table below.
| | No. of INs served | No. of PNs served | No. case files referred to LOD |
| 2017 | 10 | 22 | 2 |
| 2018 | 18 | 25 | 8 |
| 20149 | 10 | 22 | 5 |
B
The figures provided in the table below relate specifically to the year the relevant action was taken (year runs from January to December). It should be noted that a case file will often be referred to the Law Officers’ Department in one year, but be sentenced in Court in a later year.
| | No. of case files referred to the LOD | No. of these case files that resulted in prosecution |
| 2017 | 2 | 2 |
| 2018 | 8 | 8 |
| 2019 | 5 | Resulted in prosecution: 3 No prosecution pursued: 1 Decision pending: 1 |
C
It is noted that a single case file may result in more than one duty holder being fined.
| | No. duty holders sentenced by the Royal Court | Total cost of fines |
| 2017 | 3 | £106,000 |
| 2018 | 5 | £185,000 |
| 2019 | 10 | £253,000 |
D
A copy of the Unreported Judgement of all health and safety prosecutions heard in 2017-2019 to date is publically available via the following link:
Jersey Legal Information Board
A summary of the key facts of each prosecution is also published by the Health and Safety Inspectorate on the ‘Updates page’ of the HSI website:
Health and Safety at Work
| | Highest fine and duty holder concerned | Key details |
| 2017 | £50,000 States Employment Board | Patient fell from a bath hoist at Clinique Pinel sustaining fatal injuries |
| 2018 | £100,000 PDJ Distributors (Jersey) Ltd | Fire caused during work to decommission a petrol pump at La Collette |
| 2019 | £60,000 State Employment Board | Engineer sustained hand injury whilst trying to clear a blockage on a water pump at States Laundry |
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