Time for action on directors’ duties

A new general duty on directors, under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, backed up with an Approved Code of Practice which spells out exactly what directors should do, is the TUC’s demand in its latest Time for a change bulletin.

Most prosecutions for breaches of health and safety laws are against employers, but that usually means a company or public body. However, it is not possible to put a company or local authority in jail if it kills a member of staff.

The current law means that if a board of directors refuses to have any involvement in health and safety, however bad the record of the company, there is almost nothing that can be done to force them to take responsibility beyond disqualification as directors.

A new general duty on directors would mean that directors, individually and collectively, would have to take steps to assure themselves that their organisation was ensuring health and safety, but through the provisions of an Approved Code of Practice it would be made quite clear to directors what this means in practice.

www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/DirectorsDutiesBulletin.pdf