I received today a persuasive email alert from the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA). At the moment the Government Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) is drafting guidance for Courts on what sentence they should give companies convicted of work “death related” and manslaughter offences.

The CCA research show that most fines against companies convicted of offenses following work related deaths are less than 1/700th of turnover.

“If individuals earning an average annual income of £24,769 were sentenced at this level, they would be fined just £35.

The research also shows that the fines imposed on most of these companies was only 1% of their gross profits”.

Yesterday the TUC sent out a press release welcoming a “last minute” compromise between the House of Commons and the House of Lords over this bill. It seems that it will finally become law. Ironically the dispute in Parliament was over the (important) issue of deaths in police and prison custody rather than the main trade union (and Warwick Agreement?) issue that individual company or public sector directors should be held personally liable to prosecution for killing workers by their gross negligence.