Directors likely to quit over "corporate killing" law

Citation

(2001), "Directors likely to quit over "corporate killing" law", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2001.07310cab.001

Directors likely to quit over "corporate killing" law

Directors likely to quit over "corporate killing" law

Company chiefs are worried that their directors will quit if the Government goes ahead with proposals to introduce a "corporate killing" law, a new survey reveals.

One of the recommendations currently being considered by Home Secretary, Jack Straw, is that named directors should be held responsible for health and safety and be made criminally liable for deaths caused through neglect.

But according to a "Captains of Industry" survey, undertaken for the British Safety Council, as many as 40 per cent of those interviewed said they fear directors will leave rather than risk heavy fines or imprisonment.

Of the company leaders who took part in the poll, 66 per cent said that the whole Board, rather than a named director, should be held liable if an offence of corporate killing were to be established. Only 13 per cent felt an individual director should be liable, with 8 per cent suggesting that the safety manager take responsibility.

The Government has published far-reaching proposals to make directors of companies responsible for serious injuries and deaths that occur because of poor safety management.

The majority are contained in a strategy document, Revitalising Health and Safety, which was published last year by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR). Among other recommendations are:

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  naming and shaming the worst offenders;

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  introducing tougher penalties and jail sentences to deter those breaking health and safety laws.

Despite the seriousness of the document, however, the MORI survey found that very few company bosses had even bothered to read it. Only 4 per cent said they knew it a "fair amount" or "very well" and 34 per cent "just a little", while 63 per cent said they knew nothing about it.

The survey was carried out on behalf of the British Safety Council to gauge the attitudes of Captains of Industry towards the Government's initiatives that aim to improve health and safety at work and on the railways. It involved face-to-face interviews with 196 chairmen, chief executives, managing directors and other directors of some of the country's Top 500 companies.

It also shows that the bosses are far more concerned with boosting profits for their shareholders and giving better customer satisfaction than they are with the health and safety of their workers, which came a poor fifth in their list of corporate priorities.

Only 13 per cent of the executives placed health and safety among their three most important corporate objectives. Their main priorities were to generate more profits for shareholders and increase customer satisfaction (both chosen by 89 per cent of those questioned), develop new products or services (54 per cent) and provide more training for staff (37 per cent).

Commenting on the survey, Sir Neville Purvis, Director General of the British Safety Council, said: "We need a tougher law to target repeat offenders – those who, by neglect, are putting people's health and even lives at risk.

"Those with good safety records will have nothing to fear. Existing punishments for blatant and gross breaches of health and safety laws are not a sufficient deterrent and do not reflect society's desire for retribution when people are killed as a result of law breaking.

"However, the proposed legislation will achieve little if it merely provides a scapegoat for major accidents. To succeed it must help push health and safety issues further up the corporate agenda."

(News Release, British Safety Council, 22 February 2001)