Agenda item

The Health and Safety Manager presented the Committee with a Health and Safety update and any incidents that had occurred. The total number of employee accidents recorded in the quarter was five of those five there were no lost time accidents reported for quarter three and therefore there were no lost days.

The breakdown for the five reported accidents were two falls from heights, two incidents of being struck by a moving object and one slip, trip or fall. Four were associated with StreetScene and one was Housing repairs. The overall total number of incidents for the year is significantly lower than last year however, it was noted that due to lockdown and associated restrictions some service areas haven’t been operational in the same capacity as previous years.

Risk assessments for The Arc and Riverside Depot had been updated at the end of January and the Coronavirus Protective Measures Guidance Note had been reviewed and version 6 was recently issued. The Health & Safety Team were maintaining a presence across all sites during lockdown. This had been more frequent at Riverside Depot due to the number of people on site and the nature of activities undertaken.The Arc remained fairly quiet as colleagues continued to work from home. Where required and practical any Health and Safety training was taking place over Zoom.

It was noted that guidance and policies were in place but ultimately it was down to the individual employees to ensure they were complying to ensure everyone’s safety. Numbers had been added to office doors to clearly display the maximum number of people that could safely be in each room at the same time.

A Member wished to note that they had recently attended a meeting regarding asbestos and the planned approach to keep everyone safe and it was clear that the team were dedicated to their role.

A query was raised with the incident relating to hedge cutting as the beginning of the report stated no days had been lost due to accidents in this quarter but this incident detailed that the employee concerned had phoned in sick at a later date. It was confirmed that this would be looked into and clarified at a later date.

A Unison representative questioned what the procedure was for reporting incidents while working from home or would they not class as a workplace incident.  It was confirmed that if an incident happened at home during normal working hours it would be reportable however, as of yet none had been received. Guidance would be circulated to senior managers to pass on to their teams.

It was likely that here had been a couple of occasions where Covid-19 had been passed between staff however, it was hard to prove if the cases were directly related or a coincidence. The authority was unable to force staff to undertake regular Covid-19 testing however, employees were actively encouraged to visit community testing centre where possible. Any confirmed cases or suspected cases of Coronavirus needed to be reported imdeiatley to managers, each case was dealt with individually but each area the employee had been would be deep cleaned to help reduce any further transmission.

Moved by Councillor Andrew Joesbury and seconded by Kevin Shillitto

RESOLVED that the Health and Safety update be noted.