Agenda item

A report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services (Monitoring Officer) was presented to outline the Council’s approach to health and safety management and summarise activity in the past year and planned activity for 2024, in order to provide the Committee with assurance that the Council has robust arrangements in place, as required by the Health and Safety Act 1974.

The Council had a governance framework structure in place to oversee health and safety, ensure compliance with legal requirements and deliver ambitions in relation to Health and Safety.

The digitised health and safety management application (My Compliance) continued to be developed and its processes embedded within day-to-day risk management.  Data built up in the system had been used to improve understanding of the impact of violent incidents, unblock systematic issues to improve compliance and increase Officer and Member visibility and oversight.  Regular reviews of underpinning documentation with the governance framework were undertaken. 

During 2023, the following procedures were implemented and/ or reviewed:

• Legal Register implemented.
• Health and Safety Policy reviewed.
• Three-year Strategic Health and Safety Plan implemented.
• Fire Procedure and Policy Statement implemented.
• Noise Procedure implemented.
• Vibration Procedure implemented.
• Personal Protective Equipment Procedure implemented.
• Respiration Protective Equipment Procedure implemented.
• Abusive, Persistent and Vexatious Policy implemented.

Reporting content for oversight of health and safety had also been refreshed, utilising the new capabilities of My Compliance and Power BI to enable reports to focus on the lessons to be learned, trends and areas of concern, while providing assurance as to the robust datasets in place to track health and safety compliance.

A key focus for the team during 2023 had been the implementation of the health and safety management system, which had ensured that there was a robust system in place to support staff and Members.

The Council continued to deliver training and support to staff to ensure compliance with health and safety obligations and understanding of roles and responsibilities. 

In addition to the suite of eLearning materials that were already available to all staff, during 2023:

• Face-to-face incident investigation awareness, evacuation chair and fire warden courses were delivered to supplement e-learning.
• Face-to-face manual handling and people handling were delivered to support operational areas.
• eLearning resources were refreshed to enhance manual handling training.
• A Personal Safety Train the Trainer course was completed by eight personnel within the Local Authority to deliver a bespoke package in 2024 onwards.

A restructure of the Health and Safety Unit occurred in May 2023, which resulted in the Health and Safety Unit combining with risk management to create the Risk and Health and Safety Team.  Current financial restraints within the Local Authority meant one post within the Risk and Health and Safety Team had not been filled.  This resulted in ownership for delivery of fire risk assessments from January 2024 moving back to Asset Management to manage until the post could be filled.  This had now been achieved.

During 2024, further work would be undertaken to implement the new strategic plan for health and safety.  This ensured that the Council’s commitment to continual improvement in health and safety management was delivered.

The following policies and procedures would be produced, reviewed and uploaded onto the intranet in line with planned refresh cycles:

• Work at Height Procedure.
• Incident Management Procedure.
• Risk Assessment Procedure.
• Manual Handling Procedure.
• Lone Working Procedure.

An internal audit of the Council’s Health and Safety Team to check effectiveness of the health and safety management system, which had been implemented throughout the Local Authority, would be completed in 2024.

In addition to this annual assurance report to the Audit Committee, information on health and safety compliance was reported on a quarterly basis to:

• Departmental teams.
• Trade Union representatives.
• The Leadership Management Team.
• The Corporate Health and Safety Steering Group, which comprised Members, Officers and Trade Union representatives.

In response to a query from a Member, it was clarified that following a temporary (five-month) move to the Asset Management Team, full ownership of fire risk assessments had returned to the remit of the Health and Safety Team.

In response to a further query, the Committee was advised that an inspection of all fire doors across the authority had recently been completed.  All doors had received a RAG rating; priorities for remedial works were currently being processed.

NOTED