Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

Approved Code of Practice (ACOP)
An ACOP is produced for most sets of regulations by the 
HSC and attempts to give more details on the require-
ments of the regulations. It also attempts to give the 
level of compliance needed to satisfy the regulations. 
ACOPs have a special legal status (sometimes referred 
to as quasi-legal). The relationship of an ACOP to a 
regulation is similar to the relationship of the Highway 
Code to the Road Traffi c Acts. A person is never pros-
ecuted for contravening the Highway Code but can be 
prosecuted for contravening the Road Traffi c Acts. If a 
company is prosecuted for a breach of health and safety 
law and it is proved that it has not followed the relevant 

---

Health and safety foundations
11
provisions of the ACOP, a court can fi nd them at fault, 
unless the company can show that it has complied with 
the law in some other way.
Since most health and safety prosecutions take place 
in a Magistrates Court, it is likely that the lay magistrates 
will consult the relevant ACOP as well as the regula-
tions when dealing with a particular case. Therefore, in 
practice, an employer must have a good reason for not 
adhering to an ACOP.
Codes of Practice generally are only directly legally 
binding if:
➤
the regulations or Act indicates that they are, for 
example, the Safety Signs and Signals Regulations 
Schedule 2 specify British Standard Codes of prac-
tice for alternative hand signals; or
➤
they are referred to in an Enforcement Notice.
Guidance
Guidance, which has no formal legal standing, comes in 
two forms – legal and best practice. The Legal Guidance 
series of booklets is issued by the HSC and/or the HSE 
to cover the technical aspects of health and safety regu-
lations. These booklets generally include the Regulations 
and the ACOP, where one has been produced.
Best practice guidance is normally published in the 
HSG series of publications by the HSE. Examples of 
best practice guidance books include 
Health and safety 
in Construction
HSG 150 and 
Lighting at Work
HSG 38.
An example of the relationship between these 
three forms of requirement/advice can be shown using 
a common problem found throughout industry and 
commerce – minimum temperatures in the workplace.
Regulation 7 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and 
Welfare) Regulations states ‘(1) During working hours, 
the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings shall 
be reasonable’. The ACOP states ‘The temperature 
in workrooms should normally be at least 16 degrees 
Celsius unless much of the work involves severe physical 
effort in which case the temperature should be at least 
13 degrees Celsius …’
It would, therefore, be expected that employers 
would not allow their workforce to work at temperatures 
below those given in the ACOP unless it was