Minutes of the Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum 5 September 2007 at ICSL Accord
Present
- Name
- Organisation
- Trevor Hay
- Health and Safety Executive (Chair)
- Bill Bircham
- Secretary
- John Galvin
- DeFRA
- Chris Jones
- Environmental Services Agency (ESA)
- Bob Mason
- Local Government Association (LGA)
- Jeremy Jacobs
- Composting Association
- Paul Harvey
- Health and Safety Executive
- Vincent Borg
- Trades Union Congress (TUC)
- Geoff Smallwood
- Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM)
- Toni Gladding
- Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM)
- John McClean
- Trades Union Congress
- Mark Foxall
- LARAC
Observers
- Name
- Organisation
- Gary Fox
- ECT
- Tony Draper
- Serco
- Denise McGlynn
- EU Skills
- Saba Alai
- Donarbon
- Peter Clifton
- Solutions SK
Minutes of the previous meeting
ICSL Accord were thanked for hosting the meeting.
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.
RCV thefts
The issue of thefts of RCVs was discussed. The matter will be raised further at the HSE/manufacturers meeting to be held during 2008.
Members Current Health and Safety Activities
ESA
Chris Jones reported that ESA had delivered on 18 out of the 20 points mentioned in their plan of work. ESA's H&S strategy can be found on their website. Similarly, their members website shows a range of data, including the accident incidence rate in 2006 of 2650 per 100,000 employees.
480 copies of their/EU Skills Interactive training CD had been distributed, and progress was being made regarding the second training module.
ESA were investigating what their members do regarding recording ill-health data. This could give a valuable insight into the scale of any occupational ill-health issue within waste management.
In addition to the WISH plan of work, ESA were also investigating the potential for progress in Communications and behavioural issues.
CIWM
Geoff Smallwood updated members on the Entec study progress and the main conclusions which included the establishment of a system to coordinate H&S, communication methods, attending to the needs of SMEs and attending to behavioural and human factors.
TUC
The trade unions have newsletters to safety representatives, and print periodicals which feature health and safety issues. There is the online safety magazine Hazards. GMB have waste industry-specific safety leaflets.
Composting Association
Have a substantial Health and safety manual including sections on machinery, noise, manual handling, transport issues and the Animal By-Products Regulations. Periodic safety articles have appeared in the CA's magazine. Accident and occupational ill-health statistics are not routinely collected and analysed.
Consideration is to be given to raising the profile of Health and Safety in the magazine and e-news.
Local authorities
Local authorities collect accident and occupational ill-health data. Over 100 safety DVDs have recently been dispatched to LAs. Toolbox talks are commonly used.
LARAC
Larac are to address Behavioural safety at their Autumn conference. Magazine, the Loop, to show examples of good practice on behavioural safety.
Actions: The following were noted for action where appropriate:
- Assistance between WISH member organisations is available on sharing good practice and examples of how implementation of strategies have worked in practice.
- Views are sought from members on the subject of annual safety awards
- Members may consider pooling toolbox talks on their websites for sharing
TUC
- What did workers consider were the main drivers for positive change? Could this be discovered (eg by a survey etc.)?
- It was noted that safety representatives may take some time to organise centrally.
HSE
- Offered to organise a workshop for WISH on what and how stakeholders can do to influence their members.
- Will engage increasingly with the Trade Press
- Remodel their website
SME's
A discussion was held regarding the best way to get across the H&S message to SMEs. If we were to have a campaign, what should that campaign address?
Dates of next meeting
The next scheduled meetings are:
- Wednesday 23 January 2008, DeFRA, London
- Wednesday 23 April 2008, CIWM, Northampton