Agenda item

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 caused by trips and slips on roads and pavements, and as such were not within the control of the Council. She said that sickness absence levels had increased in general and wider discussions had suggested a link to problems with accessing NHS services which were impacting employees returning to work. She explained that it was easier to accommodate officer workers returning to work than it was for manual workers.

The Chairman asked about reference to accidents for eleven members of the public and the Strategic Health and Safety Manager explained that these related to low level accidents, often from slips and trips, and that the Council had reviewed whether these were caused by the facilities. She said that none had been at a level reportable to the Health and Safety Executive.

The Vice Chair of Governance asked about the training completion rates.  The Strategic Human Resources Manager explained that one employee had attended emergency first aid training last year due to there being only one employee who required training in that year, but did not reflect the total number employees who were first aid trained overall. She explained that some training was also voluntary and the Council could not dictate how many would attend.

The Vice Chair of Governance referred to the workplace assessments and asked whether the reasons for absence such as for mental health and stress were recorded. The Strategic Human Resources Manager explained that Health and Wellbeing was a large part of the Human Resources work and that that the Council had appointed Workplace Health Champions and did record different types of sickness absence, including for stress.

The Health and Safety Advisor informed the Group about her focus of work for the coming year and said that key aspects of this would include reviewing Health and Safety policies, carrying out a campaign at the R2Go Depot regarding slips and trips and manual handing and going on site visits with refuse crews to look at how they were working. She said that she would be visiting all Council sites, including Rushcliffe Country Park and West Bridgford Library to ensure that all were Health and safety compliant and would carry out an audit of the Council’s risk assessment process. She added that she would also review the Council’s training programme to check if there were any gaps in provision.

The Vice Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group asked about support for the Workplace Health Champions and the Strategic Human Resources Manager said that she was the Lead Workplace Health Champion for the Council and that the scheme had been set up approximately seven years ago. She said that the Council had Workplace Health Champions across all of its service areas and that training and support was provided for them. She explained that a focus for the Champions was looking at national campaigns and thinking about to implement and embed them within the Council.

The Vice Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group noted that there was no mention of health and safety work with Councillors and the Health and Safety Advisor said that she would take this away for review and asked Councillors to contact her if they required any health and safety support or briefing.

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group asked about Health and safety at the Council’s leisure and community facility sites and the Health and Safety Advisor said that her role covered all of the sites that the Council managed and that the leisure centres were managed by Lex Leisure who were responsible for their day to day running and which the Council reviewed through its contracts team.

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group asked about chemical storage, including expiration dates and the Health and Safety Advisor said that the teams had a very good understanding of chemical storage and had good management systems in place.

The Chairman thanked Officers for their reports being easy to read and welcomed the information being set out in a way that was understandable and easy to digest.

It was RESOLVED that the Corporate Overview Group:

a)    considered the detailed information contained within the Annual Health and Safety Report

b)    noted that a new permanent Health and Safety Advisor has been appointed

c)    noted the significant progress made against the health and safety goals and objectives previously agreed by Corporate Overview Group for the financial year 2023/24; and

d)    endorsed the proposed health and safety objectives for 2024/25 as set out in the report.