What if I don't agree with my invoice?
Cost recovery rates increased from 1 April 2024
HSE’s fees and charges rates have had an inflationary increase from 1 April 2024. Businesses found to be in material breach of health and safety law will be charged at this new rate. Those businesses that meet their legal requirements will not pay anything for HSE’s regulatory activity.
If you think there's something wrong with your FFI invoice, you can query it and if you don't agree with the response, you can dispute it.
It's preferable to email the FFI Team ([email protected]) but you can query an invoice by phone. You can call us on 0300 0033 190 between 8.30 am and 5 pm, Monday to Friday and you will need to have the FFI invoice with you when you call which provides the invoice number, date and breakdown of the work undertaken.
If the FFI team decide there's nothing wrong with your invoice, you'll have to pay it within 30 days of when they reply. If you don't agree with the decision, you can dispute an invoice.
Disputing a fee for intervention
If you're not happy with our response to your query, you can dispute it. You must do this in writing within 21 days of hearing back from us about your query.
Disputing part of an invoice
If you're only disputing part of an invoice, you still need to pay the undisputed amount within 30 days of the invoice date.
Writing to us about a dispute
You will need to provide the following information before we can look at your dispute:
- your invoice number
- your customer reference
- the name of your business
- your name
- your reasons for disputing the invoice
- whether the dispute relates to the entire invoice, or only part, specifying the appropriate entries
What happens next?
A disputes panel will look at your dispute and write back to you with their decision. The disputes panel is independent of HSE and consists of a lawyer as chair together with two other members with practical experience of health and safety management.
How the panel makes its decisions
The panel considers all the relevant information before it makes a decision. This includes whether:
- the law allows us to recover the costs in the invoice
- the time we spent on your case was reasonable
- the time we spent on your case was recorded correctly
If the panel agrees with you and the dispute is upheld, we'll return any money you've already paid.
Paying your invoice
If the panel doesn't agree with you and the dispute is not upheld, you'll have to pay any invoices within 30 days of the panel's response. You'll also have to pay an additional fee for the costs of the panel considering your dispute.