Minutes:
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
2023, 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-today
risk management. As a significant level of data had built up
in the system it had enabled the Council to improve the intelligence it could
develop from:
This 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 2022 the
Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) procedures were
refreshed. Reporting content for
oversight of health and safety had also been refreshed, utilizing 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 of
the team during 2022 had been the ongoing transition from Covid-19 to the new
way of working and ensuring appropriate health and safety measures were
embedded within that, as well as supporting the move of a significant number of
staff and Members to Fountain Court.
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 e-learning materials that were already available to
all staff, during 2022:
During 2023,
further work would be undertaken to build on progress made within the previous action
plan as part of the Council’s commitment to continual improvement in health and safety management.
The health and
safety unit would continue to monitor and assist in developing the digital
solution linking Power BI and My Compliance, to further develop business
intelligence capabilities.
The following
policies and procedures will be produced, reviewed and
uploaded onto the intranet:
In
order to be compliant
with legal duties, the Council must have a Legal register in place which
provided details of legislation applicable to the Council. A gap analysis was currently underway to map
leads for pieces of legislation, policies and
procedures in place to regulate compliance and any gaps in those. Once complete and verified, actions would be
brought forward if necessary to provide assurance around compliance.
Underpinning the
procedures and training, as set out in the governance structure, were a series
of audits that allowed the Council to test compliance with health and safety
good practice. These would continue to be delivered during the year, with
outcomes and actions tracked and used to shape future priorities.
In addition to the annual assurance report
to the Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee, information on health and safety
compliance was reported on a quarterly basis to:
Members
and Trade Union representatives.
There was also Trade Union engagement.
AGREED that the arrangements in place to manage health and safety within the Council, progress within the last year, and plans to further strengthen those arrangements were noted.
Supporting documents: