Agenda item

To consider item 12

The Health and Safety Advisor informed Members that the report this year focused on the key projects that had been ongoing during the financial year, such as the Breathing Apparatus (BA) replacement project and the new health and safety recording system. It also focused on employee wellbeing, contaminants update, and detailed the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, whilst maintaining business as usual. The report also covered performance and the safety statistics for the year 2021/22, identifying there had been a decrease in the number of personal injury safety events. However, there had been no change in the number of equipment damage events, and an increase of 15.8% in the number of vehicle damage safety events. The new system currently only reports near misses and safety events; however, it was hoped there was capacity to make hazard reporting easier and more accessible for everyone.

A Member asked if the mental health of operational staff was being properly considered.

The Head of Protection, Assurance and Development assured Members that the mental wellbeing of all staff, not just operational staff was of upmost importance and a priority.

A Member asked that although overall numbers were down, the number of serious reportable offences had gone up by almost 100%. Did officers have the split between those incidents which were preventable by actions of a firefighter or those incidents that were preventable because it was a policy or process failure.

The Health and Safety Advisor responded that a report of underlying causes could be run and split down into any actions being taken by an individual or anything that the organisation would need to highlight to reduce injuries moving forward.

A Member asked about damage to vehicles, was it Authority vehicles, or was it damage done to other vehicles through bad parking etc.

The Health and Safety Advisor responded that vehicle damage related to any vehicle collision, either the Authority’s own vehicles or damage to members of the public’s vehicles, would be counted as reportable. Vehicle damage would also include anything that was picked up by officers on routine checks, or though means of driving where it was not though a collision but by other means that could not be determined and would be investigated.

A Members asked for more details around the three violent incidents, was this towards the Authority’s officers.

The Health and Safety Advisor reported that it was acts of violence to members of staff, one example was fireworks being shot at a fire appliance.

The Chairman asked for some assurance on the underspend in the budget. Was it as a result of lack of engagement from staff for training, or were there not courses for the budget, as it was showing an underspend of just under £10k.

The Head of Protection, Assurance and Development advised that it was not because of lack of engagement, training was planned on previous trends of how many people would need to do certain courses. For example, it was planned for 8-12 candidates to undertake a NEBOSH general certificate and this year there was only two candidates that required it. Because of this, the course was cancelled, and training would be sourced by other means for the two members of staff who needed it.

The Chairman requested that future analysis incorporated data on protected characteristics

The Lead Member for Health and Safety and Corporate Risk thanked Members for all their questions and advised these would be discussed at the Health, Safety and Wellbeing meeting next week.

(Councillor Lambert left the meeting)

RESOLVED –

That Members note the health, safety and wellbeing performance as detailed in the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Annual Report for 2021/22.