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Inspection of enterprises

The Danish Working Environment Authority carries out inspections at enterprises – including foreign enterprises with employees – to check that their health and safety conditions are in order.

The control measures of the Danish Working Environment Authority

The Danish Working Environment Authority supervises whether Acts and rules in the field of safety and health at work are observed, among others through inspection visits and guidance of the enterprises and their safety organisations. The aim is to make the enterprises capable of solving their issues in relation to health and safety at the workplace.

The different forms of sanctions of the Danish Working Environment Authority, i.e. improvement notices, legal charges, administrative fines and guidelines - will depend on both the enterprise’s actual working environment standards and on its own efforts.

As an executive authority, the Danish Working Environment Authority focuses in particular on enterprises with poor safety and health conditions and no serious policy in relation to working environment issues. 

Checking your health and safety conditions

At an inspections by the Danish Working Environment Authority we check compliance with the Danish health and safety rules. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure compliance with the health and safety rules.

Danish Working Environment Authority's inspectors are, on production of proper identification, entitled to have free access to public and private workplaces to the extent required to enable them to execute their duties.

It is an unannounced visit where we check your enterprise by walking around to assess whether your health and safety conditions are in order. We look at conditions such as the enterprise’s own health and safety performance and ergonomics, noise and the risk of accidents, etc.

Use of interpreters

We can call an interpreter, if necessary. The interpreter will interpret over the telephone during the actual visit.

Interpretation is provided free of charge for your enterprise.

Contravention of the Danish Working Environment Act

If your enterprise fails to comply with the health and safety rules, we will direct you to remedy matters immediately. We can issue an improvement notice to your enterprise to remedy matters – immediately, if necessary (immediate improvement notice). We can also issue a prohibition notice against further work until matters have been remedied. In more serious cases we can report your enterprise to the police and you may have to pay fines.

In case of many or complex and serious health and safety problems we will direct your enterprise to use an authorized health and safety consultant. A health and safety consultant must advise your enterprise on preventing and solving health and safety problems. Your enterprise must pay for the services of the consultant.

Agreement to problem-solve

The Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA) can offer enterprises a voluntary agreement to problem-solve, if we find a health and safety problem that is relevant to more workplaces in the enterprise, or if we suspect a complex health and safety problem. The agreement to problem-solve provides enterprises with the opportunity to make an effort regarding their working environment by solving a health and safety problem, and getting help with this from the Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA).

When making an agreement to problem-solve on wholesome problems, the enterprise agrees to develop a solution to the problem in more of the workplaces where it is relevant, and in return WEA will not issue a notice on the problem. When making an agreement to problem-solve on complex problems, the enterprise agrees to develop a solution to the problem that is found, and in return WEA will stop investigating the complex problem. We do not offer solution deals for problems that need to be solved immediately.

Additional guidance

The Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA) may offer additional guidance to enterprises, if they have been issued an improvement notice on a health and safety problem (immediate or with time limit). The enterprise can then choose if it want to receive the additional guidance. Receiving (or not receiving) the additional guidance has no legal implications for the enterprise nor the acceptance or rejection of their solution to the health and safety problem of the improvement notice.

Offer of additional guidance

Stricter supervision with a fee

Enterprises that have been issued a prohibition notice on continuing their work after an inspection are subsequently subject to stricter supervision, whereby the Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA) follows up on the conditions. We charge a fee for stricter supervision. The fee is DKK 10,000 in 2020, but this will be adjusted annually.

Rights and duties for foreign service providers in Denmark

For further information about the Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA) and the health and safety rules, visit Workplacedenmark.dk. Here you will find more information about the Danish rules on health and safety, employer obligations, inspections by the Danish WEA and reporting of industrial injuries, among others.

Workplacedenmark.dk

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