The Health and Safety Executive has postponed its plans of taking fee for intervention for some time. It is looking to introduce a new scheme in which contractor would have to pay a fees of up to £124 per hour for safety breaches by at least six months. Now the safety regular has said that the scheme has not been scrapped and would still be implemented but would take a little time and would not be applied in April.

The Director of HSE Gordon MacDonald has issued a statement stating that the scheme would now come in to force by October 2012 and would be applicable to firms which would breach security norms. This is a very positive move by the regulator that believes that it is the duty of the firm to pay all the expenses for breaking the law and the burden should not be put on the public exchequer. There is some nitty-gritty of the scheme that has to be looked into and after further discussions on the technical details of the scheme, it would be concluded soon. That is the reason why the release date has been pushed ahead to October.

All the detailed guidelines and procedures would be available on The HSE website for the consideration of the employers and organizations before it is implemented. It is being urged that they put their security norms in place before the implementation of FFI or else they would have to pay hefty sums.

There is some opposition from some industry groups according to whom it might lead to abuse as various inspectors would be tempted to fill their pockets with the funds hence leading to mismanagement. They said that proper consideration ought to be given in this matter before its implementation.