Safety, health, environment and wellbeing (SHEW) operational policy

CITB aims to provide safe and healthy working conditions for the prevention of work-related injury and ill health and to provide helpful and targeted support where issues do arise relevant to the context of the organisation.

CITB is committed to complying with all applicable Health & Safety legislation, and relevant standards and regulations.

CITB aims to eliminate hazards and minimise occupational health and safety risks.

CITB is committed to the continuous improvement of its Health, Safety & Wellbeing Management System.

CITB is committed to consultation and participation of colleagues and colleague representatives in the management of Health, Safety & Wellbeing.

The management of Health, Safety & Wellbeing (HSW) is embedded in the organisation as a core element of our operations. This enables our organisation to meet its objective of managing and conducting its work activities to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety, and wellbeing at work of all its employees and others who may be affected by its business activities.

This policy aligns to CITB’s Corporate Social Responsibility Policy. CITB’s objectives for HSW are:

Health and Safety

• No harm or ill health to CITB employees
• No harm or ill health to learners and visitors on our sites and premises
• Provision of a safe and healthy working environment that creates an excellent Health and Safety Culture and promotes the reporting of all incidents and near misses

Wellbeing

• A holistic approach to ensuring good health and wellbeing provision to all employees to improve their physical and mental health, wellbeing and work-life balance to
• Health and wellbeing policies implemented to improve employees’ health & wellbeing
• A programme  of  health  and  wellbeing  activities  and  interventions  to  support  all employees and to achieve a reduction in sickness absence rates 

Policy Scope

This Operational Policy covers:

All activities carried out by CITB. This includes office activities, training activities and mobile working at all CITB locations and contained within the physical boundaries of those locations. CITB colleagues are duty bound to follow the requirements of this policy even when working at another’s premises.

This Statement of Intent does not cover partnership organisations, colleges, and training providers (not limited) that CITB works with and has influence and involvement.

This Policy applies to all people who work for CITB including permanent, fixed term or temporary staff, contractors, interim staff under contract, people on work experience and agency workers.

CITB’s Board appoint the Chief Executive Officer who has ultimate accountability for Health and Safety. The Board delegate the oversight of Health, Safety & Wellbeing to the Audit and Risk Committee.

HSW is delegated by the Chief Executive Officer to the Corporate Performance Director, who reports to the wider Executive Team on performance against HSW objectives and monitoring of the Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HSW) management system and ensures it is effectively maintained. The Executive Team receives reports on a quarterly basis from the Corporate Performance Director, including benchmarked performance against other organisations.

The HSW Management Group supports the Corporate Performance Director in delivering the objectives stated in this policy, monitoring performance against those objectives, and continually improving the HSW policies and management system.

The Group membership is:

• Corporate Performance Director (Chair)
• Customer & Product Director
• People Director
• NCC Director
• Office Manager

The HSW Management Group oversees a coordinated communication plan to ensure the effective use of the various channels

CITB People Director is responsible for the management of employee wellbeing, including the development and implementation of action plans to address colleague wellbeing. Action plans will be developed as part of the organisational business planning process and set out in the People Strategy. The People Director is responsible for the monitoring of wellbeing issues and reporting of performance against objectives directly to the Executive Team through the performance hub.

The People Director is responsible for the management of Health & Safety of colleagues across CITB’s offices and mobile colleagues, supported on a day-to-day basis by the Office Manager.

CITB Customer and Product Director is responsible for the management of Health, Safety & Wellbeing of colleagues and learners engaged with CITB, including safeguarding. The Customer and Product Director will escalate HSW concerns regarding learners to the HSW Management Group.

The NCC Director is accountable for the management of Health & Safety (H&S) risks and issues within the colleges, ensuring that risks are identified, assessed, and managed in line with this policy and the HSW management system.

The NCC Director is accountable for ensuring adequate resources, skills and capabilities exist within the College team, escalating any concerns, issues, and recommendations to the HSW Management Group where these cannot be managed within the Colleges.

CITB’s Office Manager is responsible for the day-to-day management of HSW management system within CITB. They are responsible for

• Monitoring of changes in H&S responsible legislation and other requirements
• Maintenance of the HSW management system
• Communication of HSW management system requirements to all colleagues
• Ensuring adequate training provision is in place to support colleagues
• Coordinating a programme of self-assessment audits
• Coordinating BSI certification audits
• Monitoring & reporting to the HSW Management Group

The Governance and Compliance Team are responsible for conducting periodic audit activity to ensure the management of Health, Safety and Wellbeing within CITB is compliant with legal requirements and the objectives of this policy, identifying risk and areas for improvement.

The Legal Team will provide specific advice on HSW legislative requirements as requested by the HSW Management Group.

All individual manager and supervisors have responsibility for the day-to-day safety, health and wellbeing of individuals and the overall environment for their work area, function, or location.

All CITB employees are responsible for ensuring their own health, safety & wellbeing and the safety of others that may be affected by their actions or omissions. All employees are expected to follow the requirements of all applicable legislation, guidance, advice, and best practice and to complete all mandatory training requirements. All employees must follow the requirements set out in CITB policies, procedures, work instructions and risk assessments, which includes the requirement to report any un-safe acts or conditions to their line manager and via the HSW management system. All employees must report all incidents (however minor) to their line manager and on the HSW system.

Some employees have additional specific duties, these are:

• Fire Marshals/Incident Control Officers
• First Aiders (Physical & Mental Health)
• DSE Assessors
• HSW Action Group representatives

Training is given for these additional roles and managers/supervisors will ensure time is allocated to allow the individual to carry out these duties.

CITB Operates a HSW Management System. The management system contains all policies and procedures. The management system is accessible to all CITB employees.

The system is structured into various areas such as:

• Policies
• Procedures and work instructions
• Health and Wellbeing
• Risk Assessments
• Incident reporting
• HSW action groups
• Audits
• DSE

Working Groups covering NCC, and Office & Mobile colleagues are in place to facilitate the participation of colleagues in the management of HSW at CITB.

The working groups consider matters of safety, health, and wellbeing as they affect staff and others in their area and will make recommendations for improvements. The group review all accidents and incidents of ill health that have occurred. They also monitor safety in the workplace. The Action Group is chaired by an appointed Manager. The chair may also invite other members of staff to attend meetings whom they feel may help and advice to the Action Group.

HSW information is communicated to staff is via several channels including:

• Colleague induction programme
• Executive strategic direction
• Working Groups
• Team meetings
• Staff training
• SharePoint ‘Connected’ page – Health and Safety Management system; HSE and H&W Yammer Groups
• CITB internal communication mediums
• Safety Alerts; and
• Office notice boards

There are certain procedures for all CITB colleagues regardless of job role, team, or location. These procedures are for the whole of CITB operations, and include but are not limited to the following:

• HSE risk assessments
• First Aid
• Fire arrangements
• Communication and consultations; Safety training
• Incident reporting
• Mobile and lone working; and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Further procedures/work instructions are available for specific teams, including:

• NCC Training including the product areas for Plant, Construction and Access
• Estates and Facilities including Portable Appliance testing
• Asbestos management and registers
• Contractor control
• Residential, Welfare and Security

Work instructions are specific to the actual task and set out how to achieve the desired outcome safely and healthily. Work instructions include equipment necessary, PPE requirements, first aid requirements, environmental issues, and emergency procedures. Work instructions can consist of step-by-step instructions, plans, drawings etc.

Specific work instructions are in place for:

• Scaffold structures
• steeple jacks & lightning conductors
• rope access
• confined spaces training
• suspended ceiling and partitions
• steel fixing
• plant operations
• lifting operation
• plant maintenance

Pro-active monitoring is carried out by a programme of internal and external audits and inspections. Audits undertaken are to check compliance with legislation, applicable standards and CITB’s own internal policies and procedures and to identify and weaknesses and areas for improvement. Audits are conducted independently by the Internal Audit team.

CITB is also certificated to OHSAS18001/ISO45001 Health & Safety standard. Self-assessment audits are conducted on a periodic basis, led by the Office Manager. Audits are planned in advance with the frequency of audits dependant on level of risk. High risk activities are audited more frequently than low risk activities. Audits may be specific, such as for a legislation or standard clause audit, site/location based or across sites, or be general in their approach. Any non-conformity is raised as an action with the appropriate manager, together with timescale implementation.

Inspections are routinely carried out; these may be pre-planned or unannounced and provide assurance that standards are being maintained at all times. Inspections can be by workplace, machinery, PPE, working behaviours. If an inspection identifies a concern or issue a non-conformity will be raised for the relevant manager.

• Policy owner: Adrian Beckingham, Corporate Performance Director
• Policy prepared by: Adrian Beckingham
• Input provided by Kay Barnes (Corporate Responsibility Manager), Beth Gray (Office Manager) Andrew Swan, (NCC Health and Safety Manager) and Alex Geldard (Management Systems Manager) upon review of internal and external audits of the management systems and previous year’s H&S performance