Around 1,000 accidents involving electricity are reported to the HSE each year, with approximately30 of these being fatal.
In February 2016 new tougher sentencing guidelines were introduced for health & safety offences. The objective being to drive compliance and reduce the number of accidents in the workplace. The guidelines are directly applicable to electricity related accidents and cases where employees are put at risk due to failure to properly comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations.

The consequence of the new guidelines is that the level of fines increase for all sizes of company with very substantial increases for larger organisations. For the largest companies, who are judged to have a high level of culpability and the highest harm category, fines could be as high as £10M.
A significantly lower threshold for imprisonment also results in more directors, managers and employees being given custodial sentences.
If a director or employee is aware of a breach of the law that has a medium likelihood of causing death or disability, then the guidelines direct the court to impose a custodial sentence of between 6 to 18 months

The emphasis has changed such that the new fines are structured not just to punish employers whose failure to comply results in serious injury but also those whose lack of compliance put their employees at risk.