A recent article by WTW has considered the positive role health and safety can play in protecting the bottom line presents Non-Executive Directors (‘NEDs’) in the food and beverage sector with opportunities for impact.
If you are a NED at a food and beverage business, supporting improved health and safety is one area where you can have significant impact. Although the core principles of health and safety law have remained unchanged for some time the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) enforcement activities are evolving, with the Regulator indicating resourcing moves aimed at increasing the number of successful prosecutions.
This change of attitude, coupled with the substantial, and in some cases unlimited, fines the courts can now hand down for health and safety offences, means the risk profile of organisations within the food and beverage sector may have significantly changed. In the absence of good governance, this increased risk profile may not only have a significant and adverse impact on the performance of the business, it could also create personal liability for those directors and managers charged with running the organisation, including NEDs.
As such, health and safety governance must be a key agenda item for boards of any organisation working in the food and beverage sector and NEDs have a central role to play in driving this messaging.
To read the full article please click on this link.