Health and Safety Committee Team Leader and Members

Hi All,

Could you please suggest who should be a members of a Health and Safety committee in the company. Who should be the Team leader.

Thank you.
Jurate

Hi Jurate, You should have on the team:

1. At least one senior member of management, maybe the operations or manufacturing director (+ his wallet)
2. The designated Health & Safety Manager, i.e. someone who knows your systems and is competent in the Health & Safety Body of knowledge, perhaps they would be NEBOSH qualified or similar
3. Representatives from all departments*

*department reps do not necessarily need to be managers / supervisors, quite often they are Representatives of Employee Safety (ROES) - elected by the workers to represent them on Health & Safety matters

Either no 1 or no 2 would usually chair the meeting. It is always good to have maintenance/engineering involved as they are doers and can usually identify innovative and practical solutions and they just love spending money.

Cheers,
Simon

Hi Jurate, You should have on the team:

1. At least one senior member of management, maybe the operations or manufacturing director (+ his wallet)
2. The designated Health & Safety Manager, i.e. someone who knows your systems and is competent in the Health & Safety Body of knowledge, perhaps they would be NEBOSH qualified or similar
3. Representatives from all departments*

*department reps do not necessarily need to be managers / supervisors, quite often they are Representatives of Employee Safety (ROES) - elected by the workers to represent them on Health & Safety matters

Either no 1 or no 2 would usually chair the meeting. It is always good to have maintenance/engineering involved as they are doers and can usually identify innovative and practical solutions and they just love spending money.

Cheers,
Simon

Thank you Simon.

I understood that at least Team leader (somebody from the management) and the designee must be trained externaly in the Health and Safety at work? What about the others from the team members?

And one more issue.. what about all the emploees, should they be trained in Health and Safety internaly by a Health and Safety committee or representative?

Sorry, maybe I am asking simple questions, but this is one of the areas where our company need to catch up.

Thank you.

Hello Jurate,

There are various courses for other team members as well as employees in general that could include:

- IOSH Working Safely - provides a grounding in health & safety
- IOSH Managing Safely – more in depth for managers
- IOSH for Senior Executives – more strategic and includes legal requirements

There are a myriad of other courses such as COSHH, Manual Handling, Fork Lift Trucks, Working at Heights, PUWER, Electrical etc.

Your H & S team should sit down and look at your policy, the roles and responsibilities, current competencies, your accidents and Incidents, outcomes of risk assessments etc. and develop a training plan including all levels.

Regards,
Simon