In March we reported that the Health and Safety Executive was planning on postponing the roll out of their new cost recovery scheme, Fee for Intervention (FFI) to allow time to publish appropriate guidance prior to implementation. For further information please click here to see our previous article.

The HSE have now confirmed that FFI will commence on 1 October 2012 subject to Parliamentary approval. By confirming the date of implementation and providing guidance the HSE is hoping this will provide clarity to dutyholders.

The guidance provides information on how the scheme will apply, how it works and also provides helpful examples of FFI in practice. The HSE will not charge FFI for work where another fee is already payable for all or some of that work. This includes offshore oil and gas production facilities and COMAH sites. Certain categories of work activities are exempt and whilst the guidance provides quite a lot of information as to how and when the charges will apply, the statement that they will be applied where a "material breach" has occurred may pose more questions than it answers as it would appear that the decision as to when such a breach has occurred will be at the discretion of the HSE inspector. For more information on the scheme and to download the newly published guidance please click here.

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.

The original publication date for this article was 29/06/2012.