What is FFI?
Fee for Intervention (FFI) is HSE’s cost recovery regime implemented from 1 October 2012.
These Regulations put a duty on HSE to recover its costs for carrying out its regulatory functions from those found to be in material breach of health and safety law.
Dutyholders who are compliant with the law, or where a breach is not material, will not be charged FFI for any work that HSE does with them.
Material breach
A material breach is when, in the opinion of the HSE inspector, there is or has been a contravention of health and safety law that requires them to issue notice in writing of that opinion to the dutyholder.
Written notification from an HSE inspector may be by a notification of contravention, an improvement or prohibition notice, or a prosecution and must include the following information:
- the law that the inspector’s opinion relates to;
- the reasons for their opinion; and
- notification that a fee is payable to HSE
It has been reported that the HSE has issued receipts totalling just over £700,000 in the first two months of its controversial fee-for-intervention (FFI) scheme.
The first FFI bills, which were sent out to organisations found to be in material breach of the law, were sent out recently.
The total sum invoiced for the two months from 1 October to 30 November 2012 was £727,644.81, which arose from 1419 FFI invoices.
A tenth of the invoices are for values greater than £1000, 70% are for less than £500 — with about a third (30%) billing less than £200.
It appears that a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed the regulator recorded FFI time at 903 premises during the first two months of the cost recovery scheme’s operation.
