Inspection - Stage 4: Report, record and follow up – Additional guidance
FOD Inspection rating
- Introduction
- Competence and attitude of management
- Welfare compliance
- Safety and health risk ratings
- Monitoring
Introduction
Inspectors should use this guidance when giving a rating following an intervention. COIN guidance and 'model office' training provides guidance on how to give a rating within COIN. From April 2007, HSAOs should no longer apply a default rating (previously required by the FOD Procedure: Inspecting: Contacting 'New to FOD' Businesses).
It is FOD's policy to rate at the level of the site rather than the company. One of the factors influencing prioritising planned inspections will be the standards being achieved, and the attitudes demonstrated, at the last visit. Note that although most 'inspection ratings' will be given following an inspection, ratings can be given following any type of intervention, eg RIDDOR investigation, if sufficient information has been gathered.
The rating process consists of evaluating each of four elements and recording a rating value against each. For an initial rating, you must rate all four elements, which are:
- competence and attitude of management;
- safety compliance and actual risk;
- health compliance and actual risk;
- welfare compliance gap.
You should rate on the basis of what you find at your intervention, basing management and welfare ratings on your overall impression, but the safety and health ratings on the relevant issue of greatest concern. You should use the complete range of values in each of the four elements.
If you need to revisit, eg to check on a notice, and conditions have changed, then it is entirely appropriate to re-rate any or all of the four elements and carry forward the ratings of the others (as relatively little time will have elapsed). When considering changes to 'competence and attitude of management', however, you will need to take broader issues into account. A 'negative' employer who grudgingly complies with a notice would still merit a 'negative' rating.
Competence and attitude of management
Competence and attitude table
| Score | Descriptor | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Management know the relevant health and safety standards, have put them into effect and check that they are used properly. Evidence of effective self-regulation. | |
| 2 | Management generally enthusiastic and competent. They have either:
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| 3 | Management appear willing to comply, although they haven't been too proactive to date, and volunteer their own thoughts as the inspection progresses. General confidence that these plans will be put into effect. | |
| 4 | Management reluctant to change and to question existing practices. No commitment to a proactive approach, but will satisfy explicit statutory requirements. | |
| 5 | Negative approach to accepting legal duties, dispute the relevance or validity of recognised benchmark standards, uncertainty as to how they will respond to the inspection. | |
| 6 | Roles and responsibilities confused, no direction and no acknowledgement that such problems exist. Wholly ineffective at managing health and safety. | |
The Competence and Attitude table contains scores and descriptors. Consider the client's ability to manage health and safety, and their attitude towards this responsibility, and then select one of the six categories on the basis of 'best fit'. If different levels of management would attract different scores, decide which level has the greatest effect on the standards achieved.
Scores 1 to 6 do not represent a sequential scale, but describe the different types of circumstances you may encounter. To illustrate this, consider the following example.
A visit to a father/son partnership may invite a rating of 3 because of the father's general attitude to health and safety. At the next visit, however, we discover that the father has handed over control of the business to his son, who is decidedly uninterested in his health and safety responsibilities. In this case the score should be dropped to 5 without passing through 4.
The 'effective' category (a rating of 1) can be awarded if you feel a company is moving along the route towards self-regulation, even though there may be some matters still to be put right. Evidence of proactive systems and successes to date is what matters, not necessarily that every single issue has been resolved. Any outstanding issues would be reflected in the scores given on the other three elements.
The 'wholly ineffective' category (a rating of 6) can be awarded in a variety of circumstances. These could include:
- small businesses where the partners have fallen out or where the owner/occupier is rarely present;
- medium-sized businesses which have now outgrown the entrepreneurial management teams which formed them; and
- large public sector bodies with poor management cultures or intractable conflicts between officers and elected members.
Welfare
Welfare compliance gap table
| Score | State of compliance | Descriptor |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compliance | Good, clean provision. Would be content to use it yourself. |
| 2 | Minor non-compliance | Welfare facilities need cleaning, temporary absence of consumables such as soap or towels. |
| 3 | Inadequate provision | No heated water, or very dirty welfare facilities, or too few toilets. |
| 4 | Major non-compliance | No toilet or washing facilities, or welfare facilities so poor as to be unfit for use |
You should rate welfare facilities on a 4-point scale:
- general compliance;
- minor non-compliance;
- inadequate provision; or
- major non-compliance.
The descriptors in the Welfare Compliance Gap table have been written mainly in terms of toilet and washing facilities as these are likely to be the main indicators you will use during inspections. This does not mean, however, that you cannot take other welfare issues into account when rating the overall welfare provision.
Safety and health risk ratings
Safety rating table
| Rating | State of compliance | Level of 'actual risk' |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compliance | Any statutorily acceptable level of risk |
| 2 | Partial compliance | Non-fatal injury(ies) |
| 3 | Partial compliance | Fatal injury(ies) |
| 4 | General non-compliance | Non-fatal injury(ies) |
| 5 | General non-compliance | Single fatality |
| 6 | General non-compliance | Multiple fatalities |
Health rating table
| Rating | State of compliance | Level of 'actual risk' |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compliance | Any statutorily acceptable level of risk |
| 2 | Partial compliance | Reversible/short-term ill health |
| 3 | Partial compliance | Serious/irreversible ill health |
| 4 | General non-compliance | Reversible/short-term ill health |
| 5 | General non-compliance | Serious/irreversible ill health to one person |
| 6 | General non-compliance | Serious/irreversible ill health to more than one person |
The descriptors for safety and health risk ratings are based on two elements:
- how far the client operates from an acceptable standard of compliance (the compliance gap); and
- the residual risk associated with operating with that gap (based on the possible likelihoods in the 'Level of Actual Risk' tables in the EMM, but simplified in terms of the type of outcome).
Three states are designated for the compliance gap:
- compliance;
- partial compliance; and
- general non-compliance.
The dividing lines between these options cannot be defined in advance for every situation, and you will need to exercise judgement. Minor failings might still merit 'compliance' on the basis of best fit.
Apply the safety risk rating and health risk rating to the appropriate issue of greatest concern arising out of the inspection. This would typically be the issue to which you would give greatest emphasis in summarising your visit or structuring your letter. The rating is not meant to be applied to a single item, such as one defective guard in a large workshop, but to the general issue (such as machinery guarding, permits-to-work, or storage of pesticides). If there are no health or safety issues relevant, then the rating should be 'compliance'.
Limit yourselves to the actual conditions found, such as defective LEV or high noise levels, rather than to managerial aspects such as the lack of an assessment. This latter aspect should be covered under competence and attitude of management.
The benchmark standards used in the EMM are written in relation to whoever might be at risk from a given activity, irrespective of their status. When considering the issue of greatest concern, and when allocating an inspection rating for the relevant element, bear in mind the relevant group at risk, not just employees.
Monitoring
Band 2 managers should monitor whether ratings are being applied when they should be and whether they are appropriate to the conditions found and the action taken. The description given in the COIN textual entry, the action taken by the inspector at the time of the visit and the action taken by the inspector following the visit, will all be key indicators.
Band 1 Heads of Operations should periodically review the outcome of the Band 2 monitoring and note and resolve any inconsistencies. If there are difficulties in applying the procedure, let FOD HQ Planning Unit know.