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HSE LAUNCH INITIATIVE WITH WASTE AND RECYCLING INDUSTRY TO REDUCE INJURIES
The Health and Safety Executive has launched a three-year initiative with the waste and recycling industry to address the high number of fatal and serious incidents that occur during collection and processing of municipal waste and recycling activities. Part of the initiative involves visits to private companies and half of all Local Authorities that either manage their own, or contract out services. Inspectors are assessing the management of health and safety, concentrating specifically on the design, specification and management of contracts, workplace transport, manual handling and employee welfare. At initial visits, inspectors are looking at policies and control measures in place and how these are managed, and will follow up one year later to check that employers required to produce an action plan of improvements have carried these out. The initiative is supplemented by a rolling programme of advisory seminars to local authorities assisting in contract design and the management of contracts/contractors. The newly launched HSE waste/recycling webpage www.hse.gov.uk/waste/index.htm guides the industry to current sources of guidance and best practice. A checklist setting out the framework for effective planning, organising, controlling, and monitoring of activities, including a review of protective and preventive measures needed to ensure the health and safety of employees and others, is available from the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/waste/checklist.doc . Industry managers are invited to compare their own (management) control systems regardless of whether or not they receive a visit from HSE. One of the main topics that HSE is promoting under the Health and Safety Commission's overall strategy is joint approaches by management and their workers, since together they are the people best placed to make workplaces safe. Local authorities and HSE working together building on best practice The Health and Safety Executive and the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services today launched a guide setting out examples of best practice working between HSE and local authorities. This is an important milestone in building a closer partnership between HSE and LAs as envisaged in Health and Safety Commission's strategy for workplace health and safety. The guide illustrates how the commitments set out in a high-level Statement of Intent agreed last year between the HSC, HSE and LA representative bodies in England, Wales and Scotland can be brought into practical effect. The guide, unveiled today at a conference to promote practical partnership, exemplifies this new approach to changing attitudes and cultures that will enable HSE and local government to work more closely together to improve health and safety at work. Health and Safety Commissioner Joyce Edmond-Smith said: "As a HSC Commissioner, and elected member of a local authority, I am pleased to see the wide range of examples of joint working and the developing infrastructure. These are evolving to suit national, regional and local needs and priorities and are helping to build the partnership between HSE and local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland" "This guide marks important progress in the way HSE and local government are working together to achieve improvements in workplace health and safety. The examples show how the commitment we are all making to work in a closer partnership is already delivering change. I would like all local authorities and HSE to embrace and build on the examples illustrated in this guide which I believe will contribute to improving health and safety in local communities and in the workplace." Derek Allen, Executive Director of LACORS said: "Today marks further progress in the process to improve health and safety enforcement by local government and the HSE. By working together more effectively in partnership, we can make workplaces safer and prevent accidents and ill health. We recognise that health and safety enforcement is a vital component of worker and public protection that successfully contributes to local community health and wellbeing. LACORS will work hard to support the partnership to see actions that will result in improvements for local communities. "This guide builds on the expertise in partnership working that already exists in local authorities and is further recognition of the vital role that local authorities have in reducing work related ill health and injury. Working in closer partnership with our counterparts in HSE will benefit local businesses, workers and the public."
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