The Committee considered a report explaining that the current Health and Safety Policy had been in place since 2023 and was required to be regularly reviewed.  Amendments had been made to the existing Policy to ensure that it was comprehensive and up to date.  A copy of the Draft Health and Safety Policy 2024 was appended to the report.

The report set out the key changes that had been made to the Policy that included the following:

• A clearer delineation between the responsibilities of the Council as a corporate body, the management structures and those for individuals;
• The Health and Safety Committees had been renamed as Health and Safety Boards and their roles had been clarified to ensure that they were not seen as a substitute to the normal line management responsibilities;
• Additional text had been provided to show that the Council had Health and Safety responsibilities for all schools, services, contractors, staff and non-staff under its control;
• Further clarity had been provided in relation to elected members’ role in health and safety;
• The Corporate Health and Safety Team’s assurance functions had been strengthened to improve governance arrangements and to show a clearer separation from operational compliance responsibilities;
• An additional reference had been made to the new critical incident document Policy (see Minute 4 below);
• The various sections had been reordered to better group together linked subject areas and text had been refined across all areas of responsibility;
• The Organogram at the end of the document had been amended to reflect all of the above.

Resolved:    That the revised Health and Safety Policy be approved subject to the Organogram being amended to include Members.