HSE Safety Alert


HSE has issued a safety alert about a change in enforcement expectations for mild steel welding fume.

There is new scientific evidence from the International Agency for Research on Cancer that exposure to mild steel welding fume can cause lung cancer and possibly kidney cancer in humans. The Workplace Health Expert Committee has endorsed the reclassification of mild steel welding fume as a human carcinogen. With immediate effect, there is a strengthening of HSE’s enforcement expectation for all welding fume, including mild steel welding; because general ventilation does not achieve the necessary control. Read the full article here.

Fee for Intervention (FFI) rate increase – 6th April 2019

Please be advised that HSE’s cost recovery rate for Fee for Intervention (FFI) will increase to £154 per hour with effect from 6th April 2019. This means that businesses that are found to be in material breach of health and safety law will be charged at this new rate. As now, those businesses that meet their legal requirements will not pay anything for HSE’s regulatory activity. HSE must set the FFI rate with the aim of recovering its full cost and in recent years it has operated at a deficit (i.e. cost more than recovered in income). A combination of this and cumulative inflationary pressures support the increased hourly rate.

If you require further information about FFI, please contact:

Health and Safety Executive
FFI Team
1.G Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
L20 7HS
Telephone: 0300 0033 190
Email: feeforintervention@hse.gov.uk

Interested in Occupational Health and Safety information?
Please visit the HSE website at the following address to keep yourself up to date 
www.hse.gov.uk