The Act will place greater responsibility on businesses to ensure that they put in place stringent health and safety practices. Failure to do so could lead to a business being publicly named and shamed, and fined up to 10% of its annual turnover, should a death occur as a result of 'gross management failure'.

A gross management failure will occur where a company's conduct falls considerably short of the duty of care it owed to the deceased. Directors and managers will need to show that they took all reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of those at risk.

"Most companies have some form of documented health and safety management in place. Certainly, for our members, protecting the health and safety of employees, customers and clients is of paramount importance," said the FPB's Chief Executive, Phil Orford. "This new legislation means that failure to manage and monitor their procedures could lead to a heavy fine and public humiliation. It is vital that smaller firms undertake a full review of their systems and processes to create and enforce strict health and safety procedures – and the FPB can help them to be better prepared."

The FPB's Health & Safety Guide is written specifically for smaller businesses and helps owner-managers to guard against workplace hazards. It covers general as well as sector-specific information, and includes health and safety policies and risk assessments. It comes with a CD-Rom of templates of documents for use with each subscriber's business, helping to ease the burden of health and safety regulations. In 2007, the FPB's Cost of Compliance survey revealed that members are forced to wade through an average of 14 hours of health and safety red tape every month.

"The guide is an accessible and cost-effective business tool. It helps the business owner evaluate risks and has essential contact information for third parties, ensuring that all the information you need is always to hand," added Mr Orford.

FPB member John McGuiness is the Managing Director of Shires Safety Consultants Ltd, Market Drayton, Shropshire. He subscribes to the annually-updated FPB Health & Safety Guide. The company recently held a seminar on the implications of the Corporate Manslaughter Act.

"Many small businesses are totally and utterly unaware of the potential issues they face. They know about the Act itself, but are oblivious as to how it could impact on them," he said. "They will have to defend themselves in the event of a prosecution and it could take three or four years before the case is actually heard, during which time they are likely to have gone out of business. The stress will be unbearable and, even if they win, what recompense is there at the end of it?"

He added: "It is not selective legislation and can impact on anyone who has a business. However, I think that the transport industry will be the first to feel the effects, and also those companies which provide company cars. Firms should be proactive, re-visit their existing health and safety procedures, and implement new ones, as necessary."

To purchase the FPB's Health & Safety Guide, which has been fully updated for 2008 to take account of changes to regulations, log on to www.fpb.org/guides. Alternatively email guides@fpb.org or call 0845 130 1722. The guide costs £95 for members of the FPB, and £195 for non-members (based on subscriptions by Direct Debit).