Since 2012, if inspectors find issues at sites, firms have to pay for the call-outs under a process known as 'fee for intervention'. The move was designed to shift some of the costs of enforcement from the taxpayer to businesses found to have breached the rules. A 2018 review of the HSE commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions warned that, by its nature, the 'fee-for-intervention' approach introduces uncertainty into the organisation's budget, because income fluctuates in line with the amount of health and safety breaches found. This has been proven to be the case since the outbreak of the crisis, when routine inspections were halted and business activity in many sectors fell away. Data obtained by CN shows that, between April and July 2020, the HSE charged firms £2.7m in fees for intervention costs, with £909,638 of the total relating to construction. This was almost half the £5.2m seen in the same period the year before, of which £1.4m came from construction.
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