HR Committee – 9 January 2025
Corporate Health and Safety Quarterly Report
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Purpose |
For Review |
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Classification |
Public |
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Executive Summary |
This Report highlights the significant work undertaken by the Corporate Health and Safety Team in quarter 2 2024 – 2025. This includes a number of scheduled policy reviews (Corporate Health and Safety Policy and Accident/Incident Reporting and Investigation Policy). This report also includes key feedback from the service safety panels and working groups, which are the Councils primary function for health and safety cooperation and consultation. The quarterly accident/incident report provides statistics from the financial year 2024 – 2025 and any key significant incidents which occurred in quarter 2. |
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Recommendation(s) |
· To review and approve the Draft Corporate Health and Safety Policy. · To review and approve the Draft Accident/Incident Reporting and Investigation Policy. · To review and acknowledge the recommendations under Health Surveillance Review. · To review and acknowledge the recommendations under Keyhaven Report. · To review and acknowledge the findings of the Depot Inspection & Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service audit. · To acknowledge the findings identified from the service safety panels and working groups. · To acknowledge the findings identified from the accident/incident report Q2 2024 – 2025 |
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Reasons for recommendation(s) |
Support the legal requirement of the Council as outlined within the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation and guidance. |
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Ward(s) |
All |
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Portfolio Holder(s) |
Councillor Jeremy Heron – Finance and Corporate |
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Strategic Director(s) |
Alan Bethune – Strategic Director Corporate Resources & Transformation – Section 151 Officer |
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Officer Contact |
James Loring Corporate Health and Safety Manager 02380 285 332 |
1. This report highlights the significant work undertaken within the Corporate Health and Safety Team and throughout the Council from 1st July – 30th September 2024 (quarter 2).
Corporate Health and Safety Policy
2. The Corporate Health and Safety Policy (Appendix 1) has now been reviewed following the team receiving a draft audit from Southern Internal Audit Partnership. The final audit report was approved in October 2024.
3. The policy is a review of the 2021 version. The draft policy includes additional requirements for workplace inspections, a new health and safety auditing framework for the organisation, communication of risk assessments (using the Directorate Hub) and new training requirements for the Council.
4. The policy identifies that all Managers/Supervisors identified within a higher risk service (see Appendix 1A), must undertake IOSH Managing Safely Training as part of their H&S induction, refresher training must be undertaken every 3 years. H&S team have identified 65 employees who would fall under this category, this does not include Directors or Assistant Directors. The Corporate Health and Safety team have engaged with Praxis42 who provide a variety of IOSH training, their training can also be delivered via our Learning Management System (LMS).
COSHH Risk Assessor Training
5. The Corporate Health and Safety Team have now produced a COSHH risk assessor training presentation, this training will be provided to 15 employees. The purpose of this training is to provide identified ‘COSHH assessors’ with training on how to undertake a COSHH assessment and an overview of how to use our Chemical Manager System, Eco Online Chemical Manager.
Winter Maintenance Plan
6. The Winter Maintenance Working Group have been meeting throughout quarter 2 to review the Council response during periods of poor weather. A risk assessment approach has been taken with each key service (Housing, Corporate Facilities, Car Parks, and Open Spaces) reviewing each of the properties they are responsible for. Each service has been asked to identify low, medium, and high-risk facilities. The group will then review the Councils response, this could include adding additional signage, manually gritting specific entrances and exits or requiring a full gritting response. For example, our operational depots are identified as high risk (due to their operational importance) and therefore require a full gritting response.
7. Once a response is agreed it will be communicated to all relevant services to implement, additional resource may be required, a report will be provided to EMT where additional resource requirements have been identified.
Health Surveillance Review
8. A desktop review of the current Health Surveillance system has been undertaken by the Corporate Health and Safety Team. The Council are currently using the Occupational Health Consultancy to provide on-going health surveillance to employees. The current processes are very manual and require Kerri Dibben (HR Admin Supervisor) to manually input data onto a spreadsheet, this includes who requires a health surveillance appointment and dates and times of appointments. Kerri has been told that Occupational Health Consultancy do have a new online portal, however access has not been granted to the Council following a request. The Council currently provides specific employees (within operational services) health surveillance on vibration, skin, respiratory and noise. The requirement for health surveillance is identified through the completion of the pre-employment health form. Managers are required to identify the workplace exposure/job requirements.
9. The requirements of providing health surveillance should be based on a specific legal requirement and on risk assessment of a task. Consultation with Occupational Health Consultancy on the legal requirements of the Council and the requirement as identified within teams risk assessments has not been undertaken for at least 5 years (HR were unable to provide any specific year we last shared updated policies and risk assessments).
10. It is understood that we are currently out of contract with Occupational Health Consultancy, therefore it is recommended the Council starts a procurement exercise to ensure the appropriate level of health surveillance is being provided and to ensure the most effective management software and tools within the industry are being used.
12. We do not have any historic workplace incidents relating to occupational exposure.
13. A total of £2,980.00 was spent on health surveillance last financial year. The Corporate Health and Safety team will now work with Procurement to outline the next steps forward.
14. Figure 1 sets out a health surveillance framework.
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Keyhaven Report
15. Appendix 2 contains the Keyhaven Health and Safety Inspection report. This report was communicated to the relevant managers and responsible persons on 27th August 2024 for comment on the actions and recommendations identified. The report identifies 26 actions, this includes:
· Implement a Keyhaven river safety management plan in line with the port marine safety code.
· Isolate and remove the unit on the key.
· Remove all defective power tools on site, implement and maintain a suitable power tools list used at work by the river wardens.
· Provide suitable and sufficient abrasive wheel training to all River Wardens (works with abrasive wheels must not be undertaken until this training is in place).
· Ensure all COSHH assessments are in place for all substances used on site.
· Undertake task specific risk assessments for all operations undertaken by river wardens, including lone working.
Workshops & Transport Health and Safety Audit
16. Antony Whittle undertook a full health and safety audit of Transport and Workshops; this audit was undertaken across both operational depots (CMD & MLD). The team at MLD scored a total of 54% (improvement needed to be made to standards). The team at CMD scored a total of 56% (improvement needed to be made to standards). A combined audit action plan has been sent to Simon Cooper (Transport and Depot Manager) and Chris Bentham-Green (Transport Technical Officer). A total of 36 actions have been identified, 4 of which are of a high priority. (See Appendix 3).
Drug and Alcohol Policy Review
17. Due to the significant workload placed on the Corporate Health and Safety Team this quarter a draft Drug and Alcohol policy was not able to be included as part of this report. A draft will be communicated to EMT at the earliest opportunity.
Accident/Incident Reporting & Investigation Policy Review
18. A review of the 2022 policy has been undertaken by the Corporate Health and Safety Team. This review includes updating the policy into the new corporate format, clarification in roles and responsibilities and new investigation templates. In addition, all actions identified within a full accident/incident investigation will be recorded on a TEAMs channel list. Reports of outstanding actions will be provided at the Service Safety Panels and EMT reports. (See Appendix 4).
Housing Ladder Racks
19. As identified within the quarter 2 EMT report, as part of the accident investigation for incident reference 3661, the following actions were identified:
· Inspect all ladder racks.
· Mark any ladder racks which have been identified as not safe for use.
· Remove all damaged ladder racks from vehicles.
20. Following the publication of this accident investigation, Housing Management requested that ladder rack inspections were undertaken by our workshop services, due to this not being in the remit of the Workshops team this action was not undertaken. Following a number of meetings between the services, it has been agreed that emergency action must be taken, this included a basic visual inspection of all ladder racks. It was agreed this could be undertaken by George Gale (Corporate Health and Safety Advisor) and Kevin Beckett (Warehousing Equipment and Cleaning Coordinator). An inspection on 11 vehicles was undertaken on Friday 13th September. Out of the 11 vehicles, 0 had roof racks in a safe for use condition. Issues identified on site include:
· Partially removed racks.
· Completely missing restraining parts.
· Bent restraining arms (both forwards and backwards)
· Twisting restraining arms.
· Releasing ladder slides damaged or missing.
· Handles for releasing ladders completely missing.
21. Following the inspection George Gale sent an email to all relevant Housing Maintenance Managers to confirm that all vehicles with the older style ladder racks must not be used until the damaged ladder racks are removed. Russell Palmer (Maintenance Manager – Responsive and Voids) has confirmed that employees have been supplied with triple ladders which fit inside trade vans. As part of the vehicle replacement scheme, new vans are fitted with the SafeStow4 Ladder rack system.
22. Following the inspection in September a further review of all vehicles which have the older style ladder rack was requested. 3 of which have not been inspected and are being used by employees. This action is currently being reviewed by Kevin Beckett (Warehousing Equipment and Cleaning Coordinator)
Depot Inspection
23. Antony Whittle (Corporate Health and Safety Advisor) undertook an inspection of Marsh Lane Depot on 03/09/2024. The primary purpose was to review the ongoing parking issues at the depot. Several Housing Maintenance vans have now been moved to parking spaces at Lymington Town Hall.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service MLD Audit
24. As agreed at the Fire Safety Steering Group, Hampshire Fire and Rescue will be undertaking fire safety audits at all corporate buildings (Offices & depots). The first audit was undertaken at Marsh Lane Depot on 17th September. Overall, the fire service was happy with the control measures and procedures displayed on site, a number of minor actions were identified, this includes:
· Additional fire action notices to be displayed throughout the site.
· Improve external emergency lighting to ensure walkways are visible and clear during the winter months and periods of darkness/poor visibility.
· Review the contents of the ‘fire grab bags’.
25. Hampshire Fire and Rescue also undertook an onsite visit at Appletree Court on 14th October. The visit was very positive and only some minor actions were identified. Steve Sapp said he was happy with both MLD and ATC and does not feel he is required to visit LTH as he is confident in our fire safety management arrangements. We will arrange a visit to the new Hardley Depot site once employees have moved into the site in early 2025.
WMR DPIA
26. The Corporate Health and Safety team have recently completed a DPIA for the transition of the WMR onto SharePoint. The Health and Safety Team will now be working on a smooth transition to SharePoint and implementing a training package for all staff who require access to the system.
Health and Safety Internal Audit
27. A final copy was sent to the Health and Safety team and Heleana Aylett in October 2024. The assurance opinion was “Reasonable” with only 2 observations made.
Operations Service Safety Panel
28. All H&S panel documentation, including minutes is added to the Service Safety Panel SharePoint pages. Below I have outlined the main feedback raised at the Operational Service Safety panel.
· Management Responsibility MLD: a number of colleagues raised concerns about unclear roles and responsibilities at our Council Depots. Employees feel there needs to be clear lines of reporting and resolving issues. It is unclear if this sits with facilities or Simon Cooper (Transport & Depot Manager).
· E-Learning Training: it was reported that access issues on the LMS system has still not been fully resolved, supervisors identified that the December target will not be met by operational employees. HR is working with admin staff in operational services on the issues identified. Access to the LMS system can be gained via a personal mobile device (via iTrent), managers can ask employees to bring in their personal devices to complete some e-learning from the depot. Additionally, supervisors are looking at arranging for employees to complete the e-learning training from home during working hours. Members of the panel suggested that additional time is provided to operational staff to provide these training courses, for example in the form of toolbox talks. Members of the panel raised concerns about staff’s ability in using tech and their literacy skills. This proposal is currently being reviewed by HR and H&S.
· Drug & Alcohol Policy Review: all members of the panel agreed with the general position of implementing a random testing policy within the organisation. Members of the panel did however identify that all teams/employees should be included within a random testing policy, this includes casual drivers and those working from Council office locations.
Housing Service Safety Panel
29. All H&S panel documentation, including minutes is added to the Service Safety Panel SharePoint pages. The Housing Safety Panel was undertaken on 10th October 2024. Below I have outlined the main feedback raised.
· Housing Employee Handbook: the content has now been agreed however some additional work is required to be completed by comms, this includes adding images to the template. Comms have outlined that a number of images must be purchased via a stock image library, currently the comms teams do not have a license for this. The panel agreed this should be made a priority and a deadline has been set for 18th November.
· Task Specific Risk Assessment Reviews – 85% of task specific risk assessments have been undertaken within Housing Maintenance, Richard Knott requested this is made a priority and is completed by the next Housing Safety Panel.
· DSE Chairs and Equipment – the H&S team reported that they have had a number of teams request where the corporate budget sits with purchasing chairs. This has been raised to Sam Wills (Civic Building & Facilities Manager) who has confirmed there is not a central budget for furniture, and it is down to individual services to purchase any replacement office chairs. The safety panel agreed this should sit within a corporate budget (where a DSE chair needs to be replaced at ATC or another Council location).
· E-Learning Training – as per the Operational Safety Panel, similar comments were made by Housing Safety Panel members. Jane Follett (Housing Performance and Training Officer) identified that ICT have been unable to provide additional training laptops for trade staff to use. Kevin Beckett has identified a number in the waste training room which can be used for new starters on Monday. The group identified a number of ways implementing e-learning training could be improved.
Office Service Safety Panel
30. All H&S panel documentation, including minutes is added to the Service Safety Panel SharePoint pages. The office Safety Panel was undertaken on 17th October 2024.
Control of Contractors Working Group
31. All working group documentation, including minutes is added to the Working Groups SharePoint pages. The Control of Contractors Working Group was held on 11/10/2024. Below I have outlined the main feedback from the group:
32. Standard Operating Procedures Review: now the Corporate Control of Contractors Policy has been reviewed and approved all services identified within the policy are required to review their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The group agreed that all services must present their draft SOPs at the next working group (January 2025).
33. CINP Additions: the group identified a number of contractors which should be added to the Contractor Incident Notification Protocol (CINP), the H&S team will support all services who have identified issues onsite with contractors.
Asbestos Working Group
34. All working group documentation, including minutes is added to the Working Groups SharePoint pages.
Housing Operational Working Group
35. The Housing Operational working group was undertaken on 25/10/2024 at Marsh Lane Depot. All information including the minutes of the meetings is held on the SharePoint site. The Working Group discuss the implementation of the new emergency standby procedures and self-service via Itrent.
Accident/Incident Report Q2 2024 – 2025
36. See Appendix 5 for the full accident/incident report.
37. A total of 80 Incident/accidents were reported in quarter 2 2024 – 2025, this is a reduction of 14 compared to last quarter however an increase of 10 when comparing to Q2 2023 – 2024.
38. Only 1 RIDDOR reportable incident was reported to the HSE this quarter.
39. A total of 29 days were lost due to work related incidents this quarter, 2 in Housing and Communities and 27 in Place, Operations & Sustainability. A total of 133 days has been lost due to work related incidents this financial year. Quarter 2 normally shows the lowest number of days lost due to the summer period and improved weather conditions.
40. The top reported cause for employee incidents and accidents was verbal abuse. We have also seen a slight increase in the number of manual handling related incidents reported (increase of 2).
41. The top reporting team was waste & recycling (13), although this is a reduction in the number of incidents reported by the service in Q1.
Significant Incidents 2024 – 2025
42. Housing & Communities - Social Media – Customer service employee received verbal abuse via telephone from a resident. The resident was making accusations about another NFDC employee who was “looking through the window and perving on her”. The operative had arrived at the property earlier that day to measure up the windows on the property, the resident was not home and therefore the employee did not access the property. On their way back from another job they attended the house, knocked the door but there was no answer, the operative then took measurements for the windows from the outside of the building. Due to the verbal Abuse, NFDC operative terminated the call. The resident called back about 5 minutes later and continued to be abusive. At approximately 2:30pm the customer service employee received a call from a trade operative confirming that a post about the employee had been made on a Totton Facebook group. The employee involved was extremely upset with the impact this had on them and their family. A request was made to Facebook to remove the post. Support has been provided to the employee via their line manager. Legal has written to the tenant and asked that comments are not made on a public forum. Tenant has been added to the Warning Marker Register as a 2 to attend. A further review is required in the use of personal information when communicating with members of the public, this includes employees using their full names on their email signatures and over the phone.
43. This incident was discussed in more detail at the Housing Safety Panel. A number of panel members felt that consideration should be given to front facing services to not provide their full name as standard when talking to residents, for example within the Housing Customer Service team. However, when issues are escalated to managers or when the service is dealing with complaints it would be reasonable for employees to use their full names over the phone or when communicating via email etc. Colleagues also identified that this could become confusing in some circumstances as a number of employees have the same first name in Housing teams. This could become confusing for the tenant and the Council. It was agreed that as a public facing organisation it is important to show our customer transparency however there is a balance to be struck to ensure the safety of staff. It was also identified that the current social media policy should be reviewed and the corporate response to situations like this should also be reviewed to ensure a consistent approach throughout the organisation.
44. The Corporate Health and Safety Team recommended the organisation reviews the requirements to have employee’s full names on their ID badges and that all communications (via email) to residents are sent via team mailboxes.
45. Place, Operations & Sustainability – RIDDOR – According to the report the employee was loading waste sacks with the waste vehicle parked on a hill, this meant that the employee would be required to load waste into the hopper at head height, this caused overstretching and an injury. Following an investigation by supervisors it was identified that the vehicle would not have been parked on a hill which would have caused this type of movement. It is likely that the employee did not have the rave rail in the lowered position (a fixture of a bin lift, when loading bagged waste this should be in the lowered position, when driving the rave rail would need to be in the higher position). A similar incident has been reported by this crew, with the rave rail not in the lowered position when loading bagged waste. The risk assessment and procedures for this type of work has been reviewed, all vehicles used for bagged waste which have been fitted with a bin lift are now fitted with service bins, the service bins must be placed in the lowered position to fill with bagged waste, when driving they are required to be placed in the upright position. This incident was reported to the HSE under RIDDOR 2013 as a 7 or more days lost incident, the incident resulted in 23 days lost.
46. Place, Operations & Sustainability – Squirrel Bite –Waste operative was loading waste sacks during their round when they were bitten by a squirrel. The employee was wearing full PPE however the bite did break the skin. The employee attended Lymington hospital where they had the wound cleaned and was given an injection to protect against potential infections. The employee then returned to work the following day. It was reported to the H&S team on 14th August that the employee had been admitted to hospital and placed in intensive care over the weekend of 10th August – 11th August with reported leptospirosis. The employee believed this was due to the incident. The employee left the organisation on 19th August, the H&S team have requested further confirmation on the cause of illness however no further information has been provided by the employee or supervisor.
Health and Safety Training
47. As part of the implementation of the Corporate Lone Working Policy, 2 new e-learning courses are being added to the Learning Management System (LMS), this being lone working and personal safety. The Corporate Health and Safety Team have been tasked with identifying all job roles within the Council which require this training (any employee who works by themselves, without close or direct supervision.). The content of the training has been approved by the Corporate Health and Safety team, Learning pool have also tested the content and it has now been approved for use. Once the relevant employees have been identified the training will be implemented and communicated. Employees will have the end of December to complete the training identified.
48. A number of Housing Maintenance Supervisors have recently undertaken a train the trainer Manual Handling course. This course was provided by a company called Osteopathic Solutions. A number of supervisors expressed concerns around the format of the content provided and their personal liability when providing this training to employees. The Corporate Health and Safety manager (James Loring) met with all trained Supervisors to discuss their concerns in more detail. Following this meeting, it was agreed that a Corporate presentation template should be completed to ensure a consistent approach throughout the Council. Osteopathic Solutions should provide this presentation, as identified in the documentation provided as part of the training course. James Loring will be following up with them. It was also identified that a suitable training area within the operational depots should be found. Marsh Lane Depot does have a training room however some work is required, and the TV screen held within the room does not function correctly (regular disconnection from the screen when using a laptop). Housing have previously identified a suitable training location within the old woodworking store, this space would be ideal for training and holding toolbox talks for all services. This has been raised previously however no further action has taken place.
49. Appendix 6 contains the Corporate quarterly H&S e-learning report.
Corporate plan priorities
50. All recommendations fall under the Corporate values (LEAF), specifically within the Learning and Ambition categories.
Options appraisal
51. All recommendations have been made to ensure the Council complies with its legal duties as set out in the relevant legislation.
Consultation undertaken
52. All draft policies have been taken to all Service Safety Panels for consultation with managers, H&S representatives and union representatives.
Financial and resource implications
53. As identified within the draft Corporate Health and Safety Policy, all managers/supervisors within higher risk services must attend IOSH Managing Safely training and refresher training every 3 years. Managers and supervisors within Housing and Operational services already undertake this training, this is currently undertaken face to face with a third-party training provider. The costs identified within the table below have been provided by Praxis42 who also provide this training online and can be provided through our LMS system. The costs identified are for all 65 managers/supervisors, a high percentage of managers/supervisors within Housing and Operational Services have in date training and therefore would not be required to complete the full training immediately.
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Course |
Cost per employee |
Total cost for the Council |
Cost per Directorate |
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IOSH Managing Safely |
£149 |
£9,685 |
Housing = £6,109 Ops = £2,980 Estate & Valuations = £596 |
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IOSH Managing Safely Refresher |
£115 |
£7,475 |
Housing = £4,715 Ops =£2,300 Estate & Valuations =£460 |
Legal implications
54. None Identified.
Risk assessment
55. A formal risk assessment is not required at this level. All significant risks are identified as part of this report.
Environmental / Climate and nature implications
56. None identified.
Equalities implications
57. None identified.
Crime and disorder implications
58. None identified.
Data protection/ Information governance/ ICT implications
59. None identified.
EMT Comments
60. EMT approved the draft Corporate Health and Safety Policy
61. EMT approved the draft Corporate Accident/Incident and Investigation Policy.
62. EMT acknowledged the actions identified within the Keyhaven inspection report. James Carpenter will discuss with the relevant managers and ensure all actions are a priority.
63. EMT agreed to look into the procurement of health surveillance and occupational health services. Alan Bethune will discuss with Heleana Aylett.
64. EMT asked for further information and evidence on the proportionality of the Council implementing a random drug and alcohol testing policy.
65. EMT acknowledged the findings from the Hampshire Fire and Rescue service visits. The Council has now responded in writing and will make all actions identified a priority.
66. EMT agreed that as a public facing organisation it is important to show transparency when speaking with and dealing with members of the public and therefore teams should continue with their current processes of working with members of the public. The Health and Safety team should continue to look at any trends identified within accident and incident reports.