Proactive inspection and Fee for Intervention, UK wide
HSE Inspection Readiness and Gap Analysis
Most HSE visits are not triggered by an accident. They are planned, aimed at a named topic in a named sector. The first anyone on site knows is an inspector at reception. AL23 Safety runs mock inspections and gap analyses that put you through the same visit first, for clients UK wide.
What is HSE inspection readiness?
A rehearsal of the visit, run by someone with no reason to be kind
Inspection readiness reproduces what an inspector actually does. We arrive on the topics HSE is currently inspecting, ask for the documents an inspector would ask for, walk the areas they would walk and speak to the people they would speak to. Then we tell you what would have been written down.
It is deliberately narrow. The point is not a complete picture of your management system. The point is the handful of things that would turn a visit into a notification of contravention, plus how many can be closed this month.
What HSE is targeting in 2026 and 2027
HSE's Business Plan for 2026 to 2027 sets a target of 14,000 proactive inspections. Occupational lung disease is the headline priority, against a background of roughly 22,000 new cases of breathing and lung problems each year. Named focus areas include engineered stone silicosis, asbestos and dusty environments such as bakeries and isocyanate spraying.
Engineered stone is the most active front. HSE published its first COSHH guidance sheet for engineered stone in May 2026, which means no dry cutting, grinding or polishing unless a business can demonstrate equally effective alternative controls. More than 1,000 inspections are planned across 2026 and 2027. By the end of May 2026 four companies had received prohibition notices. Inspectors check silica content, on-tool water suppression, face fitted respiratory protective equipment, local exhaust ventilation, health surveillance and machinery guarding. HSE research found dry fabrication generates respirable crystalline silica exposure five to ten times higher than wet methods.
For scale, HSE carried out over 13,200 inspections in 2024/25, more than 7,000 of them focused on work-related health. The 2025/26 figures are not yet published.
Where this sits next to an audit and next to enforcement support
A health and safety audit is broader and systematic. It examines the whole arrangement from policy through to monitoring. It is the right tool for measuring your management of health and safety against the standard you should be meeting. Inspection readiness is narrower and adversarial. It asks one question. If an inspector walked in tomorrow on today's priority topics, what would they find and what would they do about it.
Our HSE enforcement support service is different again. That work starts once a notice, a notification of contravention or an investigation exists. This page covers the period before that.
Who needs one
Anyone likely to be on a proactive inspection list
- You work with engineered stone, natural stone, silica dust, wood dust, welding fume or isocyanate paints
- You are a bakery, a joinery, a foundry or any operation generating dust or fume daily
- HSE rather than the local authority is your enforcing authority, which is where Fee for Intervention bites
- You have made a RIDDOR report in the last twelve months, which can attract follow-up interest
- A new site, a new process or a change of duty holder means nobody has tested the arrangements yet
- A previous visit left advice that was never actioned. Inspectors return and they read their own notes
The regulations that apply
Your legal framework, in plain terms
Inspectors act under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Section 20 gives them powers to enter premises, examine and investigate, take measurements and samples, require the production of documents and require answers to questions. Sections 21 and 22 create the two enforcement notices. Section 33 makes breach of a notice a criminal offence. Fee for Intervention sits alongside as cost recovery rather than a penalty.
Improvement notice, section 21
Served where the inspector believes there is a contravention or a likely repetition. It gives at least 21 days to remedy. An appeal must reach the Employment Tribunal within 21 days and suspends the notice until determined or withdrawn.
Prohibition notice, section 22
Served where there is a risk of serious personal injury. The activity stops, immediately or on deferred terms. An appeal must also be lodged within 21 days. It does not suspend the notice unless the Tribunal directs.
Fee for Intervention
Charged at £188 per hour from 1 April 2026, triggered by a material breach, meaning a contravention serious enough for the inspector to write down formally in a notification of contravention. Verbal or written advice alone does not trigger a charge. Recoverable time covers the visit, report writing, specialist input, worker interviews and any later investigation work until the matter concludes.
The public register
Improvement and prohibition notices are published for five years, where clients, insurers and prequalification assessors read them.
What the service covers
The documents and walk round an inspector runs
- A pre-visit review setting the likely inspection topics for your sector, drawn from HSE business plan priorities and current campaign activity
- The document request list an inspector would issue, tested against what you can produce on the day rather than what exists somewhere
- Statutory examination and test records, including LEV thorough examination and test, with records kept five years
- Exposure monitoring and health surveillance evidence where the risk profile calls for it, including health records retained at least 40 years
- Face fit test records for every wearer of tight fitting respiratory protective equipment, matched to the mask actually issued
- Policy, risk assessments and the significant findings records supporting them
- Training, competence and induction records, checked against the people who were on shift
- A structured walk round of the areas an inspector would prioritise, photographed and referenced
- Short, unscripted conversations with operatives and supervisors, where most visits are decided
- A material breach test on each finding, saying plainly whether it would be written down
- A close out plan sequenced by what can be fixed this month and what needs capital or lead time
- Where dust or chemical exposure drives the risk, alignment with our COSHH assessments work
Our process
Request the records cold, then walk unannounced
- 01
Scope by risk, not by site count
We agree the topics and areas worth testing. A day on the right subject beats a week everywhere.
- 02
Document readiness first
We request the records cold, with a deadline, exactly as an inspector would. What arrives late or not at all is itself a finding.
- 03
The walk round
Unannounced within the agreed window, at a normal working time. Early morning and shift change show a truer picture than a booked visit.
- 04
Worker conversations
We ask the people doing the work what they were told, what they were given and what happens when a control fails.
- 05
Debrief and close out
A verbal debrief the same day, a written report within a week and a prioritised plan. We return to verify closure where you want the loop shut.
What you get
Findings written in the language of enforcement
- A mock inspection report written in the language of enforcement, finding by finding
- A material breach assessment on each finding, with our honest view of the likely inspector response
- A photographic record indexed to location and to the provision engaged
- A close out plan with owners, dates and the evidence needed to prove each action
- A short briefing note for directors setting out the exposure without dramatising it
What we need from you
Access, records and a word with your people
- Access at a normal working time, without the site being tidied for us
- The documents we request, unedited, within the deadline we set
- Permission to speak to operatives and supervisors without a manager present
- Any previous HSE or local authority correspondence, including advice letters never actioned
Why AL23 Safety
A mock inspection that finds nothing has failed
Accountable
We report what an inspector would find rather than what is comfortable. A mock inspection that finds nothing has failed.
Current on enforcement priorities
We track HSE campaign activity and business plan targets. The exercise tests the topics being inspected now.
Practical close out
Findings come with a sequence and a cost driver, not a list of regulations to look up.
UK wide
We run mock inspections for single sites and multi-site estates across the UK from our Manchester base.
Before the inspector arrives
Tell us your sector and we will tell you what they will look at
A short call is usually enough to work out whether you sit on a live priority topic. No obligation.
Common questions
Answers, up front
Cannot see your question? Get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Contact usNo. No consultancy can guarantee an inspection outcome and you should be wary of anyone who suggests otherwise. Inspectors exercise their own judgement and their view of a material breach is theirs alone. What we can do is close the gaps that most often get written down, then make sure the evidence exists when it is asked for.
An audit is systematic and broad, measuring your arrangements against the standard across the organisation. Inspection readiness is narrow and adversarial, testing one question on the topics currently inspected. If you have had neither, start with the audit. If a visit feels imminent, start here.
No. Fee for Intervention applies where HSE is the enforcing authority. Local authority environmental health teams enforce much of retail, offices, warehousing, hospitality and leisure. They do not charge under this scheme. The notice powers in sections 21 and 22 are the same either way, which is why a mock inspection is worth the same to you.
A single site on one or two topics is typically a day on site plus reporting, with the report following within a week. A complex manufacturing site or multi-building estate takes longer. Cost is driven by sites, topics and whether re-inspection is included, not by the size of your business. Our published pay as you go rates are £95 per hour or £695 per day plus VAT. Readiness work often sits inside a retainer from £250 per month. Set against Fee for Intervention at £188 per hour, the arithmetic tends to make itself.
No. Once a notice, a notification of contravention or an investigation exists, the clock is already running. Go to our HSE enforcement support page instead, then come back once that matter is closed.
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