THE Health and Safety Commission has finally set out its criteria for deciding whether to investigate and prosecute breaches of health and safety law.

It will apply to all Britain's enforcement authorities, including the Health and Safety Executive and all local authorities.

The policy will tell inspectors, employers, workers and the public what standards to expect when enforcing workplace health and safety.

And the new criteria states that a prosecution should normally take place in any one of a number of circumstances, including:

when a workplace death is caused by breach of the law

if there has been reckless disregard of health and safety requirements

if the offender's standards of health and safety management is far below what is required.

Decisions on whether to investigate a workplace incident must take account of a number of factors.

Health and Safety Commission chairman Bill Callaghan said: "Our main concern is for accidents not to happen in the first place.

"And, therefore, much of the enforcing authorities' activity is designed to encourage employers to assess risks properly and take relevant preventive measures."

He added: "But when serious incidents do occur, we must have an effective framework within which appropriate enforcement action can be taken."

The enforcement policy statement is on the web at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse15.pdf.