SafeWise provide health and safety support to businesses across Staffordshire, from Stoke-on-Trent down to Lichfield and Tamworth. Most of the work is management rather than one-off advice, and we have advised employers since 2012.
The Written Policy the Law Asks For
Section 2(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires every employer to prepare a written statement of their health and safety policy and of the arrangements for carrying it out, and to show it to all employees. Employers of fewer than five are excepted, under the Employers' Health and Safety Policy Statements (Exception) Regulations 1975. So at your fifth hire a document that may never have existed becomes a legal duty, and it has to be revised as often as may be appropriate. That last part is what most businesses miss.
Arrangements Are More Than a Folder of Documents
Regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 wants arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of your preventive measures, and once you employ five or more you have to record them. Five words, five separate jobs.
- Planning. Knowing which activities carry the significant risks before work is booked in.
- Organisation. Naming in writing who is responsible for what.
- Control. Method statements, permits and procedures the people doing the job have read.
- Monitoring. Checking that what is written down is what happens on site.
- Review. Going back over it after an incident or a changed method.
An inspector or a principal contractor will ask about the last three.
Training Supervisors and Writing Risk Assessments
Training is the half that gets left until a customer asks to see a certificate. Regulation 13 of the same regulations requires adequate training on recruitment, on a change of responsibilities, and whenever new equipment or a new system of work arrives. We run 25 classroom courses, and four of them carry most of the management side.
- IOSH Managing Safely, three days for managers and senior staff, ending in a test and a project.
- SSSTS, two days for first line managers and new supervisors, certificated by Construction Skills.
- SMSTS, a five day block or one day a week for five weeks, with a two day refresher.
- Risk Assessment and Method Statement Writing, four hours, covering the principles of prevention and the five steps to risk assessment.
Once somebody inside the business can write its own risk assessments, you stop paying for every job to be documented from outside.
Checking the Arrangements Still Match the Work
Monitoring and review get dropped first, because nothing forces them until something goes wrong. Our safety audits and inspections cover both. An inspection looks at conditions and practices on the day, an audit at the policy and who owns it, at training, supervision, sub-contractor management and near miss recording. Both end in a written report with the findings ranked.
Take it as a monthly health and safety membership, with a named advisor and unlimited phone and email support, or as individual pieces of work. If the people side needs covering too, there is HR support in Staffordshire under the same roof.
Health and safety management and training across Staffordshire.
More About Us
Five Employees, One Written Policy:
At five staff a written health and safety policy stops being good practice and becomes a duty under section 2(3) of the 1974 Act.
Arrangements That Get Monitored:
Planning and organising is the easy half. Regulation 5 also asks you to control, monitor and review.
Certificates and Advice Together:
IOSH Managing Safely, SSSTS, SMSTS and risk assessment writing are on the course list, so training and advice come from one place.
From Stoke to Tamworth:
Stafford, Cannock, Lichfield or Burton upon Trent. The same named advisor, and an answer within 24 hours.