The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published a temporary register of enforcement notices while it makes technical improvements to its main public database. The change was published on 9 September 2026 and affects searches for HSE-issued improvement and prohibition notices in Great Britain.
For organisations that use enforcement records in contractor vetting, acquisition due diligence, supply-chain assurance or project risk reviews, the immediate implication is straightforward: a search of the established HSE public register may no longer show every notice currently available for publication. HSE says some notices will instead appear in its temporary register during the upgrade, meaning users may need to search both sources.
What has changed
HSE’s normal public register remains available, but it is being updated behind the scenes. During that work, HSE is publishing a separate searchable spreadsheet containing improvement and prohibition notices that are not yet included in the main register.
This is an administrative and digital-publication change, rather than a change to the law or to HSE’s enforcement powers. It does not create a new statutory duty for clients, contractors or asbestos dutyholders to undertake register searches. However, where an organisation already relies on enforcement-history checks as part of its procurement, governance, lending, insurance or transaction processes, its existing procedure may now need a temporary adjustment.
HSE has not stated an end date for the interim arrangement. Teams should therefore treat the two-source search as the current approach until HSE confirms that the technical work is complete and publication has returned to a single register.
Why the distinction matters
An improvement notice is a formal notice used where an inspector considers that relevant health and safety law is being contravened, or has been contravened in circumstances suggesting it may continue or recur. It requires the recipient to put matters right within the period stated in the notice. A prohibition notice may be served where activities involve, or are likely to involve, a risk of serious personal injury; it can prevent the specified activity from continuing unless the identified risks are addressed.
Those notices are not the same as a criminal conviction, and their appearance on a public register should not be represented as proof of a prosecution or a final finding by a court. Equally, a notice can be a material indicator for a risk-based review, particularly when it concerns work at height, asbestos controls, exposure to hazardous substances, lifting operations, excavation, demolition or site management.
HSE states that notices are published five weeks after service and remain on the public register for five years. That timing remains important. A clean search result is not necessarily evidence that no notice has been served recently, while a result should be reviewed alongside its issue date, status and the underlying facts rather than used in isolation.
Who is most likely to be affected
The temporary split is particularly relevant to organisations with formal contractor and counterparty screening processes, including:
- construction clients assessing principal contractors, specialist subcontractors and demolition firms;
- asbestos dutyholders appointing surveyors, analysts, removal contractors or refurbishment teams;
- developers and landowners carrying out corporate or project-level due diligence before appointments, purchases or disposals;
- principal contractors reviewing supply-chain competence and site-management arrangements;
- environmental, health and safety and ESG teams maintaining supplier assurance records; and
- lenders, insurers and professional advisers seeking a fuller compliance picture.
The registers cover notices issued by HSE in Great Britain. They should not be treated as a complete UK-wide record of every health and safety intervention. HSE itself notes that Northern Ireland has a separate register. In addition, some premises and work activities are enforced by local authorities rather than HSE, so an HSE register search is only one part of proportionate due diligence.
Practical steps for project and procurement teams
Organisations do not need to redesign their compliance systems, but they should make the temporary control visible and repeatable. A sensible approach is to update relevant screening checklists so that both the main public register and the temporary register are searched and the date of each search is recorded.
- Amend search procedures. Add the temporary register to onboarding, prequalification, supplier-review and transaction-due-diligence workflows.
- Record both results. Save the search date, searched entity name, company number where available, trading names considered and links or copies of results.
- Check name variations. Construction and asbestos businesses may operate through group companies, special-purpose vehicles, predecessor entities or trading styles. A single exact-name search can miss relevant entries.
- Review findings proportionately. Consider the notice type, work activity, date, remedial requirements and evidence of subsequent improvement. Ask the organisation concerned for context and supporting documentation where appropriate.
- Keep scopes clear. Do not present an HSE notice search as a complete environmental, planning, waste, employment or corporate-compliance check.
- Monitor HSE updates. Remove the interim step only when HSE confirms that the main register again contains the relevant notices without the need for a separate search.
Implications for asbestos and construction compliance
For asbestos and construction work, public enforcement history is often only one signal among many. Appointment decisions should continue to be based on competence, the suitability of surveys and plans of work, insurance, training, supervision, exposure-control arrangements, licensing where relevant, incident history and evidence that corrective actions have been completed.
Nevertheless, the temporary register closes an avoidable information gap. A procurement or due-diligence process that checks only the familiar database while the upgrade is under way could overlook notices that HSE has made publicly available elsewhere. Updating the search step now is a modest administrative measure that supports more reliable decision-making without overstating what a register entry, or the absence of one, can establish.
This development concerns publication arrangements for enforcement notices. It does not alter the underlying duties imposed by health and safety legislation, nor does it signal a new consultation, policy proposal or legal deadline.