Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken was between a fatal accident in construction and a conviction on the latest date for which data is available.
For fatalities in construction (Standard Industrial Classification, section F) reported to HSE between 2006/07 and 2014/15, the average time between the date of the incident and the date of the first hearing where a conviction is recorded is 1208 days. The time between the incident and conviction dates by yearly time bands is as follows:
Date of Conviction | Average number of days between incident date and conviction date |
2006/2007 | 985 |
2007/2008 | 1234 |
2008/2009 | 1153 |
2009/2010 | 1214 |
2010/2011 | 1251 |
2011/2012 | 1251 |
2012/2013 | 1336 |
2013/2014 | 1185 |
2014/2015 | 1267 |
Within the overall time frame from fatal incident to conviction a number of discrete stages may be involved and these are performed by different agencies largely out of HSE’s control:
Recognising the importance to victims of ensuring all stages of the process are concluded as quickly as possible, the WRDP National Liaison Committee recently agreed that any decision to prosecute should be made within 3 years of the date of death other than in exceptional circumstances – currently approximately 85% of investigations are completed within this timescale.
For its part HSE has an internal target of completing 95% of fatal accident investigations within 12 months of assuming primacy – attainment is now at 70% and the trend is improving.