News

Corporate manslaughter has been mentioned in MT many times in recent years. Now, thanks to the UK Corporate Manslaughter (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Corporate Homicide (Scotland) Act taking effect on 6 April, it is very much a reality. Although some influential voices suggest this is an additional burden on the transport industry, it should be embraced as an opportunity to improve safety, profitability and employee effectiveness by reducing road crashes, fuel use, insurance, maintenance,  fleet costs and bad publicity.

Under the new Act, employers have a 'Duty of Care' to ensure the safety of employees driving for work purposes. In simple terms, the revised legislation makes it easier to prosecute large and medium-sized firms for manslaughter following a work-related death. Attention will focus on the way in which a company's activities are organised by senior management. Prosecutors will no longer have to identify the single individual, director, or senior manager responsible before they can bring criminal proceedings. The new law simply requires that a significant element of the procedure, or system failure that caused the incident, must be at a management level. Although there's no possibility of a jail sentence for individual directors, if convicted, a firm could face an unlimited fine.

A range of risk management, training, fleet leasing, legal and other organisations have provided advice, typically highlighting that work-related road safety  should be incorporated into your existing health and safety procedures. Guidance can be found in the publication Driving at Work: managing work-related road safety, produced jointly by the Health & Safety Executive and Department for Transport in 2003, which has become a minimum benchmark - and focuses on risk management of drivers, vehicles and journeys.

The detailed steps below are widely regarded as best practice:

• Identify senior managers and ensure they accurately reflect the seniority of their roles. Ensure they understand their obligations surrounding health and safety and their duty of care to improve and enforce it in the workplace, and that everything 'reasonably practicable' is being done to avoid and reduce road risks.
• Formal company risk assessments, audits, or health checks should be undertaken on both the fleet and individual employees. This includes company car drivers, employees driving on company business, contractors and associated agencies. The risks need to be evaluated, and written policies implemented to cover or eliminate them. All employees must be made to apply health and safety rules, and be updated when changes are made.
• Maintain records to demonstrate that vehicles used or provided by the business are legal, fit for purpose, and regularly maintained.
• Ensure the driving licences and insurance arrangements of all employees who drive on business are checked at least annually to assess their legality and risks.
• Apply accident management procedures to assess all collisions/incidents (business and private) and enable appropriate corrective action to reduce future risks.
• Ensure systems are in place for continual reporting, monitoring, measurement, evaluation and improvement.

More detailed information is freely available by emailing here, and a quick fleet safety audit can be found here.