CCA Comments on Corporate Manslaughter Bill

As reported earlier this week, the government has agreed to make it easier to prosecute companies accused of corporate manslaughter.

Announcing this in a written statement in the House of Commons, home office minister, Fiona Mactaggart put the government's response to the joint report on the draft manslaughter corporate bill, published by the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committee stating that the government had accepted a number of the 57 recommendations made by the pre-legislative scrutiny panel following the publication of the draft bill; "The committee made a number of recommendations that the government accepts, in particular a reframing of the test for management failure.", she said.

However, ministers refused to adopt a further committee recommendation to extend this to individual directors whose negligence contributed to death, claiming this was already covered under criminal law.

Commenting on the announcement CCA's UK Director Maggie Robbins said:

"We welcome the Government's generally positive reply to Parliament regarding the select committee's report on the draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill. In particular, we support the Government's agreement to reconsider the 'senior manager' test and replace it with a test that considers the failures at both a 'supervisory and strategic' level within the organisation. The CCA continues, however, to have a number of significant concerns - in particular the way in which the offence will not apply to many deaths resulting from the failures of public bodies, including deaths in prisons and at the hands of the police. We will however continue to lobby and discuss these issue with the Government"

Some specific aspects of the government response that CCA notes are:

Senior manager test: In the draft bill, no prosecution could take place unless the serious failure within the company was at a senior manager level. We therefore welcome the government's agreement to reconsideration of the narrow "Senior Manager" test of the draft bill. As previously drafted, it was so narrow as to undermine the entire purpose of the bill. We await the bill to see if a new formulation will be wide enough to be effective.

Duty of care: We are concerned that the government has maintained its position that no prosecution could take place unless a civil law duty of care relationship is considered to exist between the organisation and the deceased. We continue to believe that the new offence should be grounded by the statutory duties on companies, such as Health and Safety law.

Gross negligence: We welcome that the government will reconsider the factors a jury should consider in determining whether an organisation has acted with 'gross negligence'. We also welcome the government's recognition that compliance with relevant health and safety legislation and guidance is a key factor for juries to consider. We urge the government to continue to allow juries to consider relevant regulatory guidance has been breached, as well as legislation.

Employment agencies and contractors: We welcome the government's agreement that when a sub-contracted worker is killed manslaughter prosecutions can take place against different organisations within the employment chain - including the employment agency, contractor or subcontractor.

Crown immunity: We continue to support the broad removal of Crown immunity, to make government bodies as accountable as private ones. And we welcome the government's agreement to more clearly delineate what public functions remain outside the legislation. We are concerned the government intends to continue excluding broad areas of activity as "public policy decision making" and "exclusively public functions" where in practice safeguards and accountability are not in place. One example of such an inappropriate exclusion is relative to deaths in prison and custody.

Unincorporated bodies: We welcome the government's agreement to consider further ways to extend the bill to cover unincorporated bodies.

Source: CCA New release

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