Health and Safety Executive

Investigation
Stage 1: Receive incident details - Additional guidance

SIC targeting guidance

HSE needs to ensure that the SIC ascribed to incidents is correct at the top level (SIC Section), so we have confidence in our published statistics and our understanding of the sector risks on which our policies and priority programmes are based

The top-level structure is:

Section Description

A/B

Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing

C/E

Extractive and utility supply industries

D

Manufacturing

F

Construction

G

Wholesale and retail trade; repair motor vehicles and personal/household goods

H

Hotels and restaurants

J/K

Financial intermediation; real estate, renting and business activities

L

Public admin and defence; compulsory social security

M

Education (private pre-school nurseries/crèches counted at N)

N

Health and social work

O,P,Q

Other community, social and personal services; private households with employed persons

The ICC undertake data quality checks to try to ensure that all codes,including SIC, are correctly allocated but where a SIC is clearly incorrect, take the following steps to decide on the correct code:

  • determine the correct responsible person: this should be the person in control of the work at the time of the incident, e.g. the injured person's (IP's) employer
  • ensure that if the SIC has been applied to the right incumbent, it is correct at the top level.

In particular, target the following problem areas:

  • have reports for building/construction work been incorrectly assigned the SIC of the incident location rather than the economic activity of the incumbent carrying out the construction work?
  • any of following codes: 
Code Description

9999

Not Known

1589#

Manufacturing of food products, beverages and tobacco

3663#

Manufacturing not elsewhere classified

any 51### number

Wholesale trade and commission trade, except motor vehicles and motor cycles

any 60### and 63### numbers, but particularly 6312# and 63400

Transport storage and Communication:

the Industrial Classifications Branch of the Office for National Statistics advise these should be 60249 'freight transport by road not elsewhere classified'

any 74###, but particularly 74500, 74159, 74209 and 74849

Other business activities

75110

Public admin, and defence; compulsory insurance:
examples include schools; refuse collection, social work, care homes and direct works (building maintenance) activities

any 80### number

Education

any 85###, but particularly 85113 (nursing homes) vs. 8531# (residential care homes)

Health and Social work

any 90### number

Sewage, refuse disposal, sanitation and similar activities

back to step 1.6

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Updated 24.02.09