Not knowing your role and responsibility is dangerous.

Every business we own, work for and even contract for has a legal duty to put in place suitable arrangements to manage health and safety, and individual directors, managers and workers can be personally liable when these duties are breached – Members of the board have both collective and individual responsibilities in health and safety.

If you don’t know what your responsibilities in health and safety are, then how can you prevent and protect?

The team and I still speak with many directors, managers and workers who – when honest, do not fully understand their responsibilities in health and safety.

This is one reason Safety PAL is dedicated to increasing awareness and one way we do this is by sending out information on incidents, accidents, breaches and prosecutions.

Many alerts and articles from us include directors and individual workers who have breached several Sections and Regulations of Health and Safety Law.

A common response these individuals have is:

“I didn’t know I had legal responsibility in health and safety; no one told me.”

How do these Sections and Regulations affect you?

Typical Sections of Legislation where an individual received a fine, suspended prison sentence or even an immediate custodial sentence are as follows:

• Section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 – General duties of employees at work.
  • It shall be the duty of every employee while at work—
    (a)to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work;

• Section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 – Offences
  • It is an offence for a person—
    (a)to fail to discharge a duty to which he is subject by virtue of sections 2 to 7;

• Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 – Offence by body corporate.
  • Where an offence under any of the relevant statutory provisions committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or a person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

Do you know your role and responsibilities in health and safety?

Let’s start at the top:

Managing Director: The Managing Director is responsible for the overall arrangements and for ensuring that the Company’s operations are executed at all times in such a manner as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all employees and others persons who may be affected by its operations.

As the Managing Director, you may need to appoint a Director responsible for health and safety.

*Please Note: You’re the one that’s in charge of the Company. You get many benefits when everything’s going right – but also are you have responsibilities when things go wrong.

Director Responsible for Health and Safety: The director for Health and Safety is accountable to the Managing Director for all matters relating to health, safety and welfare of employees and those affected by the companies operations such as visitors, pedestrians and contractors.

You are required to liaise with the Safety Manager/s over the range of their duties and responsibilities such as inspections, audits, report recommendations, changes in Legislation and advice obtained from other sources.

Safety Manager(s): The Safety Managers primary role is to advise the Directors and other Managers on all safety, health and welfare matters to ensure the Company complies with its statutory obligations.

Managers/Department Head(s): The managers and department heads are responsible for their personal safety and that of all personnel under his or her authority, including others who may be affected by the Company’s activities.

General Manager: A general manager is responsible for his/her personal safety and that of all personnel under his authority, including persons not in his employment who may be affected by the Company’s activities.

The Worker: All workers have a duty to take care of their own health and safety and that of others who may be affected by their actions at work. Cooperation with their employers and co-workers is essential to help everyone meet their legal requirements.

Can you link your role and responsibility with the associated law?

As you have the read the various Sections of Legislation above, and also read the breakdown of the individual’s role and responsibility in health and safety, you should be better armed to recognise and support you and your team.

Once you have linked your employee with their role and responsibility, you need to clarify they fully understand this, and have the relevant information and training to support them in fulfiling that role.

Here are a few straightforward questions to ask yourself and your employees:

• Health and safety responsibilities of managers/supervisors
  • Are they aware of their responsibility?
  • Do they have the training needed to fulfil their obligation?
  • How are they held accountable?
• Who fulfils the role of the company health and safety representative?
  • Is this person qualified?
  • Do they understand what health and safety legislation requires them, the Company and individual directors to do?
  • Are they allotted enough time to implement this role adequately?
• Do you use an external consultant for competent advice?
  • Do you need one, as there may be a suitable person in the organisation to undertake this role?
  • Is this person qualified to guide your organisation?
  • Do they provide regular documentation, updates and information to the management and staff?
  • Does the info suitably cover your businesses critical hazards, assesses the right risks and provide a full audit trail?
• Are your staff and contractors checked for competence before being selected/allowed to complete the task?
• Have you identified vital training workers and the management need?
  • Has the necessary level of competence been reached?
  • Do you provide update/refresher training so you can evidence reduced skills decay?
  • Where are all your health and safety management and training records kept in case a proactive inspection was to happen?

If you can’t prove it, you haven’t done it

Think about how you would prove your what you have done, if you are unable to provide any relevant information supporting your work and efforts?

Having in place suitable and sufficient proof should an incident or accident happen, or if an Enforcement Officer came calling would help you defend a breach or injury claim.

If you are a Company Director, I strongly recommend you ensure everyone understands their duty with regard to health and safety. Including frontline workers who have responsibilities under Section 7, all the way up to team leaders and managers who have a greater responsibility as well as reporting to you.

You cannot ever delegate your responsibility away, but you can find the best ways to and promote health and safety, and therefore meet its legal obligations.

Hope is not a tactic

Failing to comply with the legal requirements can have serious consequences – for both organisations and individuals.
Sanctions include fines, imprisonment and disqualification.

You as a Company Director or Senior Manager may not be aware that health and safety offences are concerned with failures to manage risk to health and safety, and do not require proof that the offence caused any actual harm!

One of the very first prosecutions under the New Sentencing Guidelines introduced in February 2016, details how a company failed to comply with the health and safety at work regulations.
However, even though no harm was caused (fortunately), the risk involved was foreseeable and significant, and the Company received a £3,000,000.00 fine.

If you think £3million is exceptionally high when no one was hurt, then you need to comprehend that fines are proportionate to your turnover (not profit) and based on culpability and seriousness of harm risked.

Here is the HSE press release for the Company fined £3m…http://press.hse.gov.uk/2016/energy-giants-appeal-against-3m-fine-dismissed/

How much would a health and safety failure cost you?

If there were a failure in health and safety in your Company today, how much would that cost?

To increase awareness and educate, we have created a fines calculator. Click here to check out the various scenarios and relatable fine.

Rounding up Roles and Responsibilities.

Effectively managing health and safety is not just about having risk assessments and affiliations required by your clients. The success of whatever process or system you put in place still hinges on the attitudes and behaviours of people in the organisation – sometimes referred to as the ‘safety culture’.
All your team must understand their roles and the responsibilities associated, and this will lead to positive safety culture, increasing safety and reducing incidents. And don’t forget the need for proof.

Even though every accident is preventable, unfortunately, there are still careless workers, so make sure you have a full audit trail to prove that you as a duty holder did so far as is reasonably practicable to prevent harm.

How can Safety PAL help you?

Things do not always go to plan, and this is why it is imperative to protect your business from both civil and legal claims by proving to an injury claim solicitor or Enforcement Officer you have suitable and sufficient standards in place in meeting the required Legislation – That’s how Safety PAL (PLAN ACT LEARN) can help.

Read how Safety PAL helped this Company Director win a £25,000 injury claim.

By providing the evidence, you can prove the individual was negligent in following his/her own duties and responsibilities.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, please feel free to get in touch, click like and even share to help others to become safer, smarter and better protected.

Karl Spencer, Founder and Managing Director of PAL Software Limited (Safety PAL)