Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007

By the skin of its teeth, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 was granted royal assent last Thursday having been accepted by the House of Lords. It has been a long, long time in coming as it was first suggested in 1987 after the P&O Zebrugge ferry disaster. Finally, though it becomes law...

...So what does it mean?

Many aspects of the bill will need to wait for actual case law to occur before we know how the finer points will be interpreted by courts, lawyers etc.. What we do know though is that it will require a gross breach in an organisations duty of care to apply. Wording in the act suggests:

‘a breach of a duty of care by an organisation is a gross breach if the conduct alleged to amount to a breach of that duty falls far below what can reasonably be expected of the organisation in the circumstances’

The law will also seek to single out 'senior managers' involved. The act defines senior management as the persons who play a significant role in making decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of its activities are organised. Or, the actual managing of the whole or substantial part of its activities. It can therefore be said that the Act applies not only to a company’s directors but also to departmental or sector managers.

The bill should also herald in new, higher levels of fines and provides the courts with the power to insist on any sucessful conviction being made publically known. Whilst the bill itself doesn't cover specific action against individuals involved it will identify any deliquent managers. All of the lawyers I have spoken to feel that this will in turn lead to more civil suits being pursued against named managers following a sucessful conviction.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the first few cases, expectations are that high fine levels will be levied to set the bar...

Download a copy of the full Act or a summary of FAQs relating to the bill here.

The importance of credible evidence..

I was pleased to see the RCN's General Secretary on BBC Breakfast news yesterday morning talking about the need for better evidence to be captured whenever a verbal or physical assault occurs. He was talking in the main about a new survey conducted by the RCN which finds a simply staggering 35% of lone working nurses having been subjected to physical attack or abuse.

It is my experience also that the Police and the courts are powerless to act unless credible evidence exists. Writing a report on an incident, particular a verbal incident is not enough to enable action to be taken. The Police need hard evidence.

The NHS Counter Fraud & Security Management Service also talk about the need for more and better reporting of incidents and the evidence required to enable them to support an NHS Trust in taking action.

Connexion2 and its Identicom won the first ever ACPO sponsored award at the recent IFSEC 2007 event in Birmingham because of the work we have done to ensure Identicom meets and exceeds ACPO guidelines on mobile panic alarms. Part of this was the use of discreet audio from the Identicom which is captured by a monitoring centre specifically to provide credible evidence in support of the worker and their employer. NOW, with such credible evidence action can be taken against those being verbally or physically abusive.

I would urge all employers reading this to consider the benefits of capturing credible audio evidence. Not only will it improve your lone worker's life but put you in a better position to take positive action and improve your relationship with the Police. Ultimately, this will all save you costs and reduce your lone worker risks.