Agenda item

The Committee received an annual report from the Occupational Health and Safety Manager that provided an update on performance for 2018/19 on health, safety and wellbeing (for copy see file of Minutes).

Members were advised that approaching 200 mental health first aiders had been employed and would cover a range of sites to provide support in relation to mental health and to raise awareness.  The number of reported incidents remained static with 94% of all reported incidents indicating minor injury and just under 4% being RIDDOR reportable.  There had been two Health and Safety Executive (HSE) interventions which were resolved promptly and there continued to be an increase in water related fatalities however they were not attributed to previous fatal incidents.  This continued to be a targeted high risk area.

Councillor Temple asked for details on the HSE interventions and the Occupational Health and Safety Manager explained that one was following a planned visit to a construction site and picked up on housekeeping issues, such as materials being left on the floor.  This led to low level intervention.  The second was an isolated incident relating to the cutting of kerb stone without dust compression on the machine, and had been dealt with effectively.

Following a question from Councillor Carr regarding defibrillators, the Occupational Health and Safety Manager advised that a review of provision was carried out three years ago and they were placed at the highest footfalls.  He added that there were an additional 11 defibrillators located across the different Council sites as a result of the review.

Councillor Clark was pleased to hear that the counselling service was also available for family members, and further to a question about the service was informed that the majority of interaction was over the telephone.

Referring to page 3 of the report, Mr Robinson asked if this flowchart was shared with employees as provided an excellent overview of the work being undertaken.  He suggested that this could be a useful tool to generate conversations and trigger connections.  The Occupational Health and Safety Manager responded that this would be cascaded via service representatives and service H&S forums.

The Chair asked if the accident and incident rates were down as the number of staff had reduced.  He was advised that the figures did take account of this.

Resolved:

That the report be noted.