HSE Training Fines 2024–2025: The Real Cost of Poor Training Records

Between 2024 and 2025, the Health and Safety Executive prosecuted UK businesses for serious safety failures, and in several of these cases inadequate training or competence was among the failings the HSE identified. The fines ran into the millions.

This is not a compliance technicality. People were seriously injured, and in two of the cases below workers were killed. Businesses were fined six- and seven-figure sums. And the safeguards that were missing would, in most cases, have cost a fraction of the penalty.

Here are the prosecutions, what went wrong, and what your organisation can learn from them.

The Headline Fines

Samworth Brothers — £1.28M

Samworth Brothers, a major food manufacturer, was fined £1.28 million (Plymouth Magistrates' Court, 7 November 2024) after a worker, Paul Clarke, was crushed to death by a reversing lorry at one of its production facilities. The HSE investigation found a failure to properly assess the risks around strip curtains and a lack of a safe system of work for reversing vehicles.

The court heard that the risk was foreseeable. This was a workplace-transport failure — a reminder that competence and safe systems of work need to cover every operation on site, not only the obvious production tasks.

Source: HSE Press Office

Bestway Northern — £1M

Bestway Northern, part of the Bestway wholesale group, was fined £1 million (Manchester Magistrates' Court, 18 July 2025) after banksman Lee Warburton was crushed to death by a reversing HGV at one of its depots. The HSE's primary finding was a failure to implement a safe system of work; inadequate training for banksmen — the personnel responsible for guiding vehicles in confined spaces — was one of several contributing factors.

The company had a system on paper, but the training behind it was among the gaps the HSE identified. The fine reflected both the severity of the outcome and the distance between documented procedures and actual competence.

Source: HSE Press Office

Proline Engineering — £500K

Proline Engineering received a £500,000 fine (Manchester Magistrates' Court, 6 November 2024) after an apprentice lost fingers clearing a blockage from a horizontal bandsaw. HSE inspectors found that the training given was inadequate — the apprentice had received only brief verbal instruction, and there was no reliable record of who had been trained on what.

This is a pattern that comes up repeatedly. Brief, informal training is, from a legal standpoint, almost as exposed as no training at all. If you cannot demonstrate that every relevant worker was properly trained, you have a gap.

Source: HSE Press Office

Jacksons Bakery — £367K

Jacksons Bakery was fined £367,000 after a worker was injured by machinery. The HSE cited a failure to provide adequate training on the equipment being used at the time.

For a business of that size, a £367K fine is significant. It is also entirely avoidable. Equipment-specific training and a record of who completed it would have changed the outcome of the prosecution entirely.

Source: HSE Press Office

The Pattern Behind the Fines

Look at these cases together and recurring themes emerge — in the Bestway and Proline prosecutions, training and competence were directly among the HSE's findings:

• Training was inconsistent or only informal — some workers properly trained, others given little more than brief verbal instruction.
• No records to prove training happened, even when it might have.
• Procedures existed on paper but were not backed by actual competence.
• Safe systems of work were missing — the controls that keep people away from moving vehicles and machinery were not in place or not enforced.

This matches what HSE inspectors report seeing across site visits every year. The issue is rarely that a company has zero training. It is that training is patchy, poorly recorded, or out of date — and when an incident occurs, the organisation cannot demonstrate compliance.

What HSE Inspectors Actually Look For

When an HSE inspector arrives on site — whether after an incident or as part of a routine inspection — training records are one of the first things they request. Specifically, they want to see:

1. A training matrix showing which roles require which competencies. (If you do not have one, read our guide on what a training matrix is and how to build one.)

2. Individual training records proving each worker completed the required training, with dates.

3. Evidence that training is current — not a one-off induction from three years ago, but ongoing refresher training where required.

4. Risk assessment linkage — proof that you identified the risks, determined what training was needed, and delivered it.

5. Competence assessment — not just attendance records, but evidence that workers were assessed as competent after training.

If any of these are missing, you have a problem. And under the Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme, you will start paying for it immediately.

Fee for Intervention: The Clock Starts Ticking

Even without a prosecution, HSE can recover its costs from any business found to be in material breach of health and safety law. Under Fee for Intervention, the rate is £183 per hour (from 1 April 2025) for every hour of inspector time spent on your case.

That includes the initial visit, follow-up inspections, correspondence, and enforcement action. A single FFI case can run into thousands of pounds before any formal prosecution begins.

And if the case does go to prosecution, the fines are substantial: in 2024/25 HSE prosecutions resulted in around £33 million of fines across 246 cases — an average of roughly £134,000 per prosecution.

Sources: HSE Fee for Intervention guidance; HSE Annual Statistics; analysis by VinciWorks and Skillcast

Why Training Records Fail

The businesses fined above were not small operations cutting corners to save money. They were established companies with health and safety departments, documented procedures, and (in most cases) some form of training programme.

So why did they fail?

Spreadsheets and paper records. Most training records in the UK are still managed in Excel or on paper. These systems break down at scale. Version control is non-existent. Records get lost, overwritten, or simply forgotten.

No single source of truth. Training data lives in multiple places — HR systems, line managers' notebooks, external training providers' portals. When an inspector asks for a complete picture, nobody can produce one quickly.

Expiry tracking is manual. Certifications lapse. Refresher training falls overdue. Nobody notices until an incident forces a review.

Accountability is unclear. When training is everyone's responsibility, it is nobody's responsibility. Without a clear system showing who owns each training requirement, gaps appear and persist.

How to Protect Your Organisation

The fines above were not caused by exotic risks or unusual circumstances. They were caused by common failures in common industries: food manufacturing, wholesale distribution, engineering, bakeries. Every sector with physical operations faces the same exposure.

Here is what separates the companies that get fined from those that do not:

1. Maintain a live training matrix. Map every role to every required competency. Keep it current. Review it when roles, equipment, or regulations change. Our guide to building an H&S training matrix walks through the steps.

2. Record training completion with dates and evidence. Attendance records are the minimum. Assessment results, certificates, and sign-off by a competent assessor are stronger.

3. Track expiry dates automatically. If a certification lapses and a worker continues in their role, you have a compliance gap from the day it expired. Manual tracking is not reliable enough.

4. Audit regularly. Do not wait for an HSE visit or an incident. Run internal audits against your training matrix at least quarterly.

5. Make records accessible. If an inspector asks for training records for a specific team, you should be able to produce them within minutes, not days.

6. Evaluate your tools. If spreadsheets are no longer cutting it, our guide to choosing training matrix software covers the seven criteria that matter for UK SMEs.

Not sure where your gaps are? Our training compliance gap checker walks you through the key questions inspectors ask and highlights where your records may fall short. You can also use our training cost calculator to estimate what proper compliance training actually costs — it is a fraction of the fines above. And our HSE Fine Risk Calculator estimates your potential fine exposure based on your sector, staff count, and current training gaps.

The Bottom Line

In 2024–2025, the four prosecutions above carried over £3 million in fines between them. In two of these cases — Bestway and Proline — inadequate training or competence was directly among the HSE's findings; in the others it sat alongside wider failures in risk assessment and safe systems of work.

Whatever the precise mix of failings, the safeguards that were missing were not exotic. Accurate, up-to-date training records that can be produced on demand are one part of demonstrating competence — and a part many organisations cannot evidence.

The question is not whether your team has been trained. It is whether you can prove it.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Fine amounts and case details are sourced from HSE press releases and may be subject to appeal or variation. Requirements vary by sector and circumstance. Consult a qualified health and safety professional for guidance specific to your organisation.

---

TrainProof is building the training record system that makes compliance provable. One matrix, every team member, every certification — tracked, auditable, and always current.

Join the waitlist to be notified when it is ready.