By Summit Safety Solutions | Health & Safety Consultancy | Updated 2026
Reading time: 7 minutes | Focus : health and safety requirements
As a Managing Director, the health and safety requirements placed on you by UK law go far beyond hanging a poster in the break room. In fact, if your business breaches health and safety law, you can be prosecuted personally – resulting in a criminal record, disqualification from acting as a director, and in serious cases, a prison sentence.
This is not a worst-case scenario reserved for reckless employers. In April 2025 alone, the HSE imposed fines totalling nearly £11 million, thats 28 times the total for January of the same year. British Airways was fined over £3 million. Cambridgeshire County Council received a £6 million penalty after three fatalities. These are not outliers; they are the new enforcement normal.
If you are a Managing Director trying to understand your obligations, what “competent person” means in practice, and how to get your compliance position under control, this article is for you
The legal basis: health and safety requirements for directors under UK law
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is the foundation of your obligations. Under Section 37, if a business commits a health and safety offence, and that offence happened with the consent, connivance, or neglect of a director or senior manager, that individual faces personal prosecution (not just the company).
Many Managing Directors assume the corporate structure shields them. It does not.
Furthermore, the HSE’s own guidance, INDG417, makes clear that the board must accept, both collectively and individually, its role in leading health and safety. In practice, this means:
- Health and safety must sit as a standing boardroom agenda item, not a tick-box exercise
- The MD, or a formally nominated director, must lead on H&S matters internally
- All board decisions must account for their health and safety implications
- Senior management must receive regular updates on significant risk issues
Importantly, delegating health and safety to a manager or an external consultant does not remove your liability. As the MD, you remain responsible for ensuring that person is competent, properly supervised, and that their recommendations are actually acted upon.
“But we’ve never had an incident”; why that logic no longer holds
This is the most dangerous assumption in H&S management, and consequently one the HSE has moved firmly away from incident-led enforcement to address.
Several recent prosecutions arose from routine inspections where no accident had occurred. For example, one company was fined £650,000 after an inspector visited and found dangerous vehicle-pedestrian conflicts on site. No one had been hurt. Another received a £900,000 penalty after legionella was found in its water systems, again before anyone fell ill.
The HSE’s 96% conviction rate in 2024/25 is not a coincidence. Rather, it reflects a regulator that investigates thoroughly, documents carefully, and wins. As a result, if an inspector visits your premises and uncovers a pattern of non-compliance, even without a triggering incident, you are genuinely at risk.
So the question is not “have we had an accident?” The right question is: “could an inspector walk into our business today and find that we have met our health and safety requirements?”
Five health and safety requirements that Managing Directors most often miss
Working with businesses across multiple sectors, these are the compliance gaps we encounter most regularly.
1. A written health and safety policy that people actually follow
A written H&S policy is a legal requirement for any business with five or more employees. However, a policy gathering dust in a filing cabinet provides no legal protection whatsoever. Courts examine what actually happened, not what was written down. Your policy must be communicated, understood, and reflected in day-to-day practice.
2. Risk assessments that are current and complete
Risk assessments must be “suitable and sufficient” under the law and moreover, they must be reviewed whenever circumstances change: new staff, new equipment, new processes, or new premises. Many businesses complete their initial assessments and then never revisit them. That gap is precisely what HSE inspectors look for during visits.
3. A competent person who is genuinely competent
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to appoint one or more competent persons to assist with meeting the health and safety requirements of the business. In practice, this role often falls to a well-meaning office manager with a one-day training course. That, unfortunately, does not constitute legal competence. A competent person must possess sufficient knowledge, training, and experience to identify risks and put appropriate measures in place or you must bring in qualified external support, such as Summit Safety Solutions.
4. Training records that exist and are up to date
If an incident occurs and you cannot produce clear evidence that affected employees received relevant training, your legal position becomes significantly worse. Training records are not bureaucracy for its own sake. They are your evidence of due diligence, and they matter enormously once an investigation begins.
5. Health and safety as a genuine board priority
HSE guidance is explicit on this point: H&S must be led from the top. If your board meetings never address safety performance, incident rates, or risk exposure, that gap represents both a governance failure and a legal vulnerability. Consequently, it is also one of the first things an investigator will look for.
What good health and safety management actually looks like
The businesses that stay compliant, and more importantly keep their people safe, share a set of common characteristics worth understanding.
Leadership takes personal ownership
Compliant businesses treat health and safety requirements as a business risk, not an administrative burden. Their leadership understands that the cost of a serious incident in fines, legal fees, lost productivity, reputational damage, and above all the human cost dwarfs the investment needed to get compliance right in the first place.
A nominated director takes personal ownership of H&S performance at board level. As a result, safety performance gets reported, discussed, and acted upon at the same level as financial performance.
Systems are maintained, not just created
Good H&S management means risk assessments are reviewed regularly, not just written once. Furthermore, training is refreshed as roles change, new hazards are identified, and regulations are updated. Records are maintained consistently so that, if an inspector arrives, the evidence of due diligence is immediately available.
External expertise is used properly
Genuinely compliant businesses typically work with a qualified external consultant who understands their industry, monitors regulatory changes, and provides an independent view of their compliance position. Crucially, that relationship is active recommendations get implemented, not filed away.
Recent regulatory changes that affect your health and safety requirements
Building Safety Act 2022 — if you operate in construction or property management, the new duty holder regime has introduced substantial new responsibilities. Ignorance is not a defence, and the Act is already generating enforcement activity.
Work-related ill health is now a priority enforcement area — the HSE’s 2024/25 annual report highlighted a continued focus on musculoskeletal disorders, occupational lung disease, and work-related stress. These are no longer treated as soft issues; they are active enforcement priorities with increasing prosecution activity.
Routine proactive inspections are increasing — the HSE has signalled it will continue targeted inspection campaigns, particularly in construction, manufacturing, and waste management. Therefore, you should not wait for an inspector to identify what is wrong with your safety management.
Fines scale with company size — under the Sentencing Guidelines, fines for health and safety offences are calculated based on both company turnover and culpability. As a result, a larger business found to have been negligent can expect substantially higher penalties than a micro-SME facing the same breach. This is deliberate policy, not inconsistency.
For a full list of recent prosecutions, see the HSE’s public conviction register.
How Summit Safety Solutions can help you meet your health and safety requirements
A qualified H&S consultant does not remove your legal duties – but they provide the competent support the law requires, and give you confidence that your compliance position is defensible if it is ever scrutinised.
At Summit Safety Solutions, we work directly with MDs and business owners to:
- Carry out a full Compliance Gap Review of your current H&S position, so you know precisely where you stand before an inspector does
- Write or update your health and safety policy, risk assessments, and management systems to meet current requirements
- Act as your competent person under the 1999 Regulations, providing qualified and independent oversight
- Keep you informed when regulatory changes affect your business, rather than leaving you to find out from an inspector
- Prepare you for HSE inspection so that, if a visit does happen, you are ready
We work with businesses across the south of England. We explain health and safety requirements in plain English, not jargon. Our job is to make compliance manageable, not to bury you in paperwork.
In summary: what every Managing Director needs to do
The health and safety requirements placed on UK Managing Directors are clear, enforceable, and increasingly prosecuted. To summarise the key obligations:
- Maintain a written, communicated, and actively followed health and safety policy
- Conduct and regularly review suitable risk assessments
- Appoint a genuinely competent person – internal or external
- Keep training records for all relevant staff
- Make health and safety a standing board agenda item
- Stay current with regulatory changes as they arise
You do not have to manage this alone. However, you do have to manage it. The earlier you address any gaps, the easier and less costly it is to fix them.
Frequently asked questions about health and safety requirements for MDs
What are the health and safety requirements for a Managing Director in the UK?
As MD, you hold collective and individual responsibility for health and safety leadership in your organisation. Specifically, the health and safety requirements include: a written H&S policy in place and actively followed; suitable and sufficient risk assessments conducted and reviewed; a competent person appointed under the 1999 Regulations; and health and safety as a standing board-level priority. Under Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, you can be personally prosecuted if a breach results from your consent, connivance, or neglect.
Can a Managing Director be personally fined or imprisoned for a health and safety breach?
Yes. Directors convicted under the Health and Safety at Work Act face unlimited fines, disqualification from directorship, and custodial sentences. Additionally, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 creates further personal exposure where a fatality results from senior management failures.
What is a “competent person” under health and safety requirements?
A competent person is someone with sufficient training, experience, and knowledge to help the employer meet its health and safety requirements. This can be an internal employee or an external consultant but they must be genuinely qualified, not just nominally appointed to satisfy the paperwork.
How often must risk assessments be reviewed to meet health and safety requirements?
There is no fixed statutory interval, but risk assessments must be reviewed whenever there is significant change; including new processes, premises, equipment, or workforce composition. Best practice is a formal annual review as a minimum, with additional reviews triggered by any relevant change or incident.
What happens during an HSE inspection?
An HSE inspector can visit your premises without prior notice. They will typically review your H&S policy, risk assessments, training records, and accident book, and they will observe working conditions directly. If they identify serious breaches, they can issue Improvement Notices, Prohibition Notices stopping work immediately, or refer the matter for prosecution.
Summit Safety Solutions is a health and safety consultancy based in the south of England, helping Managing Directors understand and meet their legal health and safety requirements without the jargon.
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