Issue - meetings

Report of the Director - Neighbourhoods

The Strategic Human Resources Manager presented the Health and Safety Annual report for the period of April 2023 to March 2024 and provided an overview of the key points.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager referred to sections two and three of the report which covered the increase in the health and safety risk profile for the Council, which was due to the Streetwise services coming back in-house and the opening of Bingham Arena and Rushcliffe Oaks Crematorium. In light of this, the Council had reviewed its health and safety provision and determined to recruit a permanent Health and Safety Advisor.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager updated the Group about key activities that had taken place over the last twelve months, including the annual review of Health and Safety policies.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager said that Health and Safety Audits and visits had been conducted by the new Health and Safety Advisor at the Streetwise Depot, Rushcliffe Country Park and the R2Go Depot to both familiarise herself with the sites and carry out hazard spotting.

The Strategic Human Resources Manager noted that the Health and Safey Executive had visited the Streetwise Bingham Depot in October 2023, which had been an announced visit from an Inspector from the chemical regulation division, in relation to plant protection products. She said that the Inspector had reviewed the Council’s training and risk assessment procedures and had carried out a comprehensive inspection of the Council’s chemical storage and compliance with the legislation. Overall, the Inspector was pleased and submitted a few minor written recommendations, suggesting a reduction in the amount of stock held in storage and that the chemical store be modernised and relocated inside.

In relation to progress towards achieving health and safety goals, the Strategic Human Resources Manager said that all six goals had been achieved with the exception of some outstanding policy reviews which would be rolled over in the 2024/25 programme. She said that e-learning compliance was not as high as the Council would like and that this would be a focus for the coming year. In relation to performance, she said that accidents had increased slightly, in part due to increased understanding from training and toolbox talks about reporting of accidents.

In relation to work days lost due to accidents, the Strategic Human Resources Manager said that this had increased significantly in comparison to previous years, but that although many of these were for minor accidents, due to the nature of manual work had nonetheless meant that staff members could not work. She said that all had been reported to the Health and Safety Executive and none had triggered any follow up from them.

The Chairman asked about the number of days lost to injury and asked if these were due to any particular reasons. The Strategic Health and Safety Manager said that the Council did review whether it was at fault for any of the accidents and said that the majority had not occurred on the Council’s premises, often  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12