[Councillor Carol
Bull, Cabinet Member for Governance arrived at 4.10pm during the
consideration of this item].
The Service Manager (Health and Safety) gave a
presentation on the corporate function of health and safety within
West Suffolk, which also included events held on council owned
property.
The main legal requirement for health and
safety was encompassed in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act
1974.
There were various regulations, one of which
was for employers to consult with their employees or their
representatives on health and safety matters.
The law sets out how employees must be
consulted in different situations and the different choices
employers had to make. There were two
different regulations which required employers to consult their
workforce about health and safety:
-
The Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations 1977
(as amended); and
-
The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees)
Regulations 1996 (as amended).
To ensure that the Health and Safety
Sub-Committee covered all relevant issues, the Sub-Committee would
consider standard agenda items and would allow for other items to
be added as necessary. These were:
-
Minutes from previous Health and Safety Sub-Committee
-
Minutes from previous Health and Safety Group meeting
-
Incident statistics
-
Health and safety policy (if there were amendments to report)
-
Legislation updates (if there were changes to report)
-
Health and safety corporate updates (including wellbeing)
-
Health and safety lessons learnt (local authority specific)
The presentation also included information on
policy; audits; fire risk assessments; health and safety advice
(internal and external); the Safety Advisory Group; event safety;
liaison with third parties; management systems; training which
included e-learning; projects; occupational health; and drug and
alcohol testing.
There being no decision required, the
Sub-Committee noted the contents of the
presentation.