Memo M4/12: Health and Safety Self Assurance Toolkit
IntroductionHeads of departments are expected to satisfy themselves that the health and safety arrangements within their departments meet the requirements of University policy statements. This has been done, in part, by completing and submitting a ‘self assessment of health and safety compliance’ form. However, the completion of this form has been sporadic and its effectiveness at helping departments assess their performance was limited. To improve and provide further support to departments, a web-based health and safety self assurance toolkit has been developed, based upon the existing finance toolkit.
Department Action
From April to September this year all departments are asked to complete the health and safety self assurance toolkit. Heads of department are responsible for ensuring the self assurance is completed within this timescale. However, it is assumed that departmental safety officers will be nominated to undertake the review, complete the questionnaire and submit this to their head of department for approval. Once the head of department has approved their assessment, it will be forwarded to the University Safety Office.
Departmental access to the web-based program is currently being finalised. Once this has been done, departments will be notified by email that the toolkit is ready to use.
Outcome
The toolkit will provide a clear indication of effective health and safety management systems and help identify where improvements might be required. Departments are expected to use these findings to plan and develop ways of implementing improvements. At this point, departments may wish to consult their departmental safety advisory committees, area safety officers and the University Safety Office for advice. The exercise will be repeated each year between September and November.
The summarised and anonymous results will be used to monitor the University’s overall performance. The exercise though is ultimately about supporting individual departments and as such, it will not be used to rank departments in any way.
Performance
There are ten questions within the health and safety toolkit equivalent to the indicators currently used in the University’s HASMAP audit (University Policy Statement S1/11). Each question consists of at least one answer that represents a standard of control. For each answer a department selects a statement that best reflects their current practice. There are four statements for each answer, representing ‘Recommended Practice’, ‘Good Practice’, ‘Partially Compliant’ and ‘Non Compliant’. The 'Recommended Practice' is equivalent to Level 3 in HASMAP.
To support their selection departments must also provide evidence. The evidence can take the form of an attached document, a description of the current arrangements or simply an indication of where improvements are to be made. The completed assessment cannot be submitted without this evidence, which further helps provide an auditable trail. It would also help the University Safety Office in identifying where follow-up advice might be relevant.
A pilot study indicated that it can take about 3-4 hours to complete the exercise. This may depend on a number of factors, such as the variety of hazards or availability of information. However, the level of detail provided in the evidence section should be proportionate to the department’s overall risks. The programme will automatically save changes as the toolkit is completed and so the exercise can, if necessary, be spread across the whole of April to September.
Support
To launch the self assurance exercise, training seminars have been arranged to provide an introduction to the toolkit and explain the process. The seminars are open to both heads of department and departmental safety officers. The initial dates for these seminars are:
Tuesday 15 May, 10:30 - 12:00, Lecture Theatre C, Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford (places can be booked from 10 April)
And repeated:
Friday 18 May, 10:30 - 12:00, Rosemary Rue Building, Old Road Campus, Roosevelt Drive, Headington (places can be booked from 10 April)
Registration and further details are available via:
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/safety/safetytraining/
Any questions, please contact the University Safety Office.
B Jenkins
March 2012