HC Deb 21 July 2004 vol 424 c328W
Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many enforcement notices were issued by the Health and Safety Executive in each of the last seven years. [184681]

Jane Kennedy

Over the last seven years the Health and Safety Executive has issued the following number of enforcement notices. The figures for 2003–04 will be publicly available in the Offences and Penalties report, due for release in late October 2004.

Year1 2 Total enforcement notices issued
1996–97 37,444
1997–98 38,911
1998–99 10,900
1999–2000 11,340
2000–01 11,056
2001–02 11,082
2002–03 13,324
1Year refers to operational year, which runs 1 April to 31 March. 2 The table refers to total enforcement notices issued in Great Britain and includes improvement and prohibition notices. 3 In 1996–97 and 1997–98, HSE issued "Notices of Intent" that required a satisfactory outcome be secured within two weeks so as to avoid serving an improvement notice. As a result, some improvement notices were not issued. If the notices of intent were not issued, the number of enforcement notices would have been about 540 higher in 1996–97 and 630 higher in 1997–98. This system is no longer used.