Death fines below 0.2 per cent of turnover

Most large companies convicted of safety offences involving a workplace death are fined at less than a 700th of their annual turnover, a new study has found. If individuals earning an average annual income of £24,769 were sentenced at this level, they would be fined just £35. The research by the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) also shows fines imposed on most of these companies after workplace deaths are only 1 per cent of their gross profits. CCA looked at the companies convicted for 'death-related' health and safety offences since 1 January 2006 and compared the fines imposed with the convicted companies' turnover and gross profits. CCA executive director David Bergman said: 'The fines that the courts currently impose upon companies for the most serious health and safety offences are so low as to be almost irrelevant to these companies. A key purpose of these prosecutions is deterrence - yet fines which are the equivalent of £35 for the average person simply have no impact upon a company's wealth.' He added: 'Companies can be fined up to 10 per cent of their turnover for breaching competition law - and this is when the company has not even been convicted of a criminal offence, and no person injury yet alone death is involved.' He said CCA believes 'the threat of fines of between 15 to 40 per cent of turnover is the kind of punishment appropriate to the seriousness of the offence and will create a real deterrent effect against companies needlessly placing the lives of workers and members of the public at risk.'