Cost & commercial
Set an LEV thorough examination next to an HSE improvement notice and the two are not close. One is a planned cost of a few hundred pounds; the other is an open-ended bill that arrives with the regulator, and it starts long before any fine is mentioned.
The short answer
Set an LEV thorough examination next to an HSE improvement notice and the two are not close. One is a planned cost of a few hundred pounds; the other is an open-ended bill that arrives with the regulator, and it starts long before any fine is mentioned.
The detail
When an inspector finds a material breach, the Fee for Intervention scheme charges you for their time at just under two hundred pounds an hour, the rate set in April 2026. That covers the whole visit, including areas where nothing was wrong, plus the office work of writing it up, with invoices arriving every two months until the matter is closed. The employer pays even where a contractor was trusted to keep the system right, because the duty of competence sits with you.
An improvement notice then requires you to put the fault right by a deadline - which usually means the remedial works and the proper examination you could have booked in the first place, now done under pressure and on the regulator's timetable. A prohibition notice can stop the work entirely until it is fixed, so production halts while the bill climbs. Both notices are recorded on the HSE's public register for five years, where clients, insurers and tender panels can see them.
Beyond that sit the larger risks. Serious or repeated failures can be prosecuted, with unlimited fines in the higher courts and personal liability for directors under section thirty-seven of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Insurance can be affected, and a live enforcement record can quietly cost you work. None of this is set against a test that would have cost a few hundred pounds.
There is a time cost on top of the money. An enforcement matter pulls managers away from running the business to gather records, respond to the inspector and arrange works to a deadline, often across weeks. That management time rarely appears in the headline figure, but it is real, and it competes directly with the work the site is meant to be doing - none of which a quietly booked-in examination ever demands of you.
What it means for you
The comparison is stark once laid out. A thorough examination is a small, predictable, planned figure that leaves you with a report and a logbook. An improvement notice is an unplanned figure set by someone else, attached to remedials, downtime, a public record and the risk of far more. The test is simply the cheap side of the same ledger.
A current examination report is also the single best evidence that you were controlling exposure. It is what turns an inspection from a costly problem into a short conversation, and it is bought for a fraction of what a notice sets in motion. Self-identifying and fixing on your own terms is always cheaper than being told to.
Seen whole, the choice is about control of the timetable as much as the sum. A planned examination happens on your terms, at a known cost, with a report to show for it afterwards. A notice happens on the regulator's terms, at a cost they set, with a record that follows you for years. Being on the cheaper side of this ledger is, in the end, mostly a matter of acting before someone else makes you.
The service behind the guide
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Questions
There is no fixed figure. Fee for Intervention runs at just under two hundred pounds an hour for the whole visit and follow-up, on top of the remedial works and lost time.
Far more. A thorough examination is a planned few hundred pounds, while a notice brings cost recovery, remedials, downtime and a public register entry.
The HSE's cost-recovery scheme. When an inspector finds a material breach, you pay for their time at the set hourly rate until the matter is closed.
Improvement and prohibition notices are held on the HSE's public register for five years, visible to clients, insurers and tender panels.
Yes. It is the single best evidence that you were controlling exposure, and it can keep an inspection short and routine.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Book your thorough examination now and keep a current report on file - the single best evidence of control.