Agenda item

To present the report of the Principal Corporate Health and Safety Advisor.

The report of the Principal Corporate Health and Safety Advisor setting out the Authority’s performance with regard to Health and Safety during the period from 1 April, 2020 to 31 March, 2021 was presented for the Committee’s consideration.

The Principal Corporate Health and Safety Advisor reported that the annual report is presented in a format prescribed by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) which has developed a framework and guidance for the production of annual health and safety performance reports. The framework was not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of health and safety but should assist in identifying the commitment, ability and direction of the management of occupational health and safety. The main points to be drawn from the report were as follows –

·         The Covid 19 crisis has dominated the work carried out by the Council during 2020/21. The formation of the Emergency Management Response Team (EMRT) to oversee the corporate response to the Coronavirus pandemic and all activities and reactive work related thereto enabled the implementation of tight risk controls to address the health risk.

·         The presentation of plans and risk assessments to the EMRT before work was allowed to be carried out ensured that work was undertaken in as safe a manner as possible. The scale of the work done to ensure continued service delivery by the Council should not be underestimated. During the year to which the report refers, new risk assessment formats, new guidance and new operational plans were developed to address the risk from Covid 19 as explained in further detail in section 9 of the report. A total of 482 risk assessments and reviews were undertaken during the year an analysis of which is provided at Table 15. The risk assessment process is a continual process with risk assessments reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure they remain current and new risk assessments being developed.

·         The Corporate Health and Safety Plan for 2020/21 was not implemented because of the need to address the immediate and evolving demands during the Covid 19 crisis. Most of the actions from the plan have been incorporated into the 2021/22 plan whilst recognising the additional risks and demand of living, working and delivering services in a Covid 19 world. There have been some amendments to the plan in acknowledgement of the possible need to address issues which may arise during the ongoing crisis situation.

·         The report contains a comparison of the data for all accidents and incidents reported during 2020/21 and the data for employee only incidents with the same data for 2018/19 and 2019/20.  For both categories there has been a significant decline in the number of incidents in 2020/21 (Tables 1 to 6 refer) on  the previous two years which is directly related to the reduced number of services operating and reduced activities under Covid 19 restrictions. The figures show an increase in incidents for the second and third quarters of the year mirroring the periods during which schools re-opened which historically account for the largest number of incidents per service.

·         The ongoing pandemic also had a significant impact on training provision during 2020/21 with classroom sessions being suspended and training moving online where feasible. Nevertheless, a total of 13 corporate health and safety sessions were successfully held and were attended by a total of 81; these included classroom sessions with limited capacity for which a Covid related risk assessment was undertaken beforehand. Table 7 of the report provides a breakdown of the corporate health and safety sessions held and the numbers attending and Table 8 shows the corporate health and safety E-Learning completions. As well as the corporate training provision, health and safety courses and E-Learning also continued to be arranged around the ongoing restrictions for the social care sector (Tables 9 and 10 refer).

·         Staff health and well-being have been key priorities during the pandemic and several initiatives have been introduced in 2020/21 including a Working from Home well-being page. This has since evolved into a Health and Well-being section and now includes a number of pages around specific health and well-being themes and has registered 1,343 users in the last month of 2020/21. Table 12  in the report shows the number of corporate health and well-being sessions held in the year  for the courses documented and the number attending whilst Table 13  provides the same data for social care health and well-being sessions; Table 14  provides information about health and well-being E-Learning Completions.

·         The Health and Safety Executive has carried out some proactive work in the year in relation to Covid 19 including inspections of six Anglesey schools to assess Covid control measures; no significant issues arose from the inspections. Compliance with an Improvement Notice issued by the HSE in December 2018 in relation to a Hand-Arm Vibration (HAVS) case was completed in January, 2020 and a letter of confirmation was received. Work has continued to monitor the controls implemented as a result of the Improvement Notice which include regular meetings with the Chief Executive, Head of Housing Services, the Housing Health and Safety Officer and Corporate Health and Safety.

·         The management of the Covid 19 crisis by the EMRT can be seen as a key achievement over the year as can the continued supply and distribution of PPE. The capacity for the type of reporting that produces the weekly Situation Reports providing senior management with up to date information on staff capacity, work carried out and potential areas of concern should be considered for future monitoring of the Council’s health and safety performance. Likewise, the speedy and efficient adaptation of the Learning Pool as a method of providing specific information and training on Covid 19 risks and controls has the potential to provide access to training and information on other health and safety topics. 

The Committee thanked the Officer for the report and raised the following points on the information presented –

·         Issues around the delivery of training and attendance at training, particularly the complications with delivering in person training during the Covid pandemic. The Corporate Heath Advisor explained that where refresher training has been required, then efforts have been made to safely fulfil that requirement as opposed to holding training events where participants attend en masse, e.g. First Aid training certificates last for three years before they have to be renewed. The re-introduction of in-person training has only been considered in the past few months as restrictions allow otherwise the Human Resources Department has successfully adapted a great part of the training offerings to a virtual format. 

·         The health and well-being implications of remote working and increased screen time and whether these are being given more considered attention within the Corporate Health and Safety Action Plan. The Corporate Health and Safety Advisor confirmed that employee well-being was a consideration from the outset of the pandemic when home working arrangements were mandated. An online training module to enable staff to undertake their own Display Screen Equipment (DSE) assessment has been made available and helps staff to identify what they need to do to ensure their home work place and work station are suitable; all staff whose work regularly involves the use of display screen equipment are required to complete the module. This was an aspect of the workplace that was being looked at prior to the pandemic which has since been escalated because of Covid 19 and has been recognised as a significant risk. Where staff have identified issues after undertaking the DSE assessment, they have been provided with additional equipment to allow them to work safely from home.

·         The delay in complying with the Improvement Notice issued by the HSE in relation to the HAVS case and the current situation. The Corporate Health and Safety Advisor clarified that the case is a historic case and was reported to the HSE because it involved an occupational condition (Hand arm vibration syndrome) that is reportable under RIDDOR; following an inspection by HSE an improvement notice was issued with a six month timeline in which to comply. The delay was due to the time taken to verify the information provided by the Council which included meetings with Council officials; once that process was completed to the HSE’s satisfaction a closing meeting was held to review the documentation and a letter of confirmation was subsequently received. The current controls in place meet with HSE’s stipulation regarding what needed to be done, and the situation is the subject of ongoing internal monitoring by the Council’s Officers including by the Chief Executive.

It was resolved to accept the Annual Corporate Health and Safety Report for 2020/21 and to endorse the recommendation therein that the Council should follow the strategic plan for the management of Health and Safety and implement the Corporate Health and Safety Action Plan whilst also acknowledging that due to the continued Covid 19 situation, the actions in the Corporate Health and Safety Action Plan may be delayed or replaced with more urgent actions to address the risk from Covid 19.

NO FURTHER ACTION WAS PROPOSED