Delegates backed a motion from the HSE Prospect branch which instructed the sector executive to develop support for a wider campaign with external stakeholders to find alternative viable funding models for the regulator.

FFI, which has been operating since October 2012, requires HSE to recoup all formal enforcement costs – up to the point where it decides to prosecute – from dutyholders it deems to be in material breach of the law.

In Janary 2014, Martin Temple, chair of the manufacturers’ organisation EEF, carried out a review of HSE. He said fee for intervention was a “dangerous model, which links, directly or indirectly, the funding of the regulator to its income from ‘fines’”.

HSE branch believes the government has “brushed aside and ignored” his concerns and those of HSE staff.

Simon Hester said HSE had seen a 40% loss of staff. He said there were two general approaches to cuts: try to oppose them or find alternative funding models. But there were “huge dangers” in taking the route of alternative revenue raising.

Fee for intervention “undermines HSE’s ability to do the work it does” and this view is supported by significant figures in the industry, he said.

Although the Health and Safety at Work Act covers all workers and workplaces, HSE does not regulate all of these workplaces, Hester explained.

Local authorities do not have a charging regime.

Multinationals and small, one-man bands are all charged the same rate.

“The whole process is undermining HSE and the bug will spread across the civil service,” he said.

The branch is pushing for a viable replacement for FFI, such as an industry-wide levy, for example as an element of Employers’ Liability Compulsory Insurance.

• You can see more conference reports in the ‘news’ section on the left of the civil service industry pages  and in PublicEye magazine, being distributed to members this week.