20240111Paper5-H&SCDRAFTMinutes

Paper 5

Health and Safety Meet­ing Minutes

11 Janu­ary 2024

---

For inform­a­tion

Draft minutes of Health & Safety Meeting

Held 11 Janu­ary 2024

In Attend­ance:

Kate Christie Mark Pocock Alan Smith Emma Stew­art Pip Mack­ie Colin Simpson Beccy Stanton

Item 1 Review of minutes and pre­vi­ous actions:

1. Minutes reviewed as per action log and out­stand­ing actions car­ried forward.

Item 2 02 Mobile cov­er­age and lone work­ing workshop

1. Issue is the change in mobile net­work from EE to O2 has meant some loc­a­tions have no mobile cov­er­age at all. This is impact­ing par­tic­u­larly on the Peat­land team, and also on the rangers. ES has been explor­ing solu­tions with the IT team and updated H&SC, as fol­lows: a) ES did a tri­al with BS’s per­son­al phone using 2 sim cards. b) ES has also had an intro­duc­tion to the new PeopleSafe portal via MP and also dir­ectly with the PeopleSafe team. c) On the basis of the above ES and MW have con­cluded that their pref­er­ence is to rely on the SOS func­tion in their Garmin devices for emer­gency situ­ations, which they feel is more secure that rely­ing on mobile phone cov­er. d) ES will review the team’s lone work­ing guid­ance accord­ingly and will share with the H&SC

---

1. H&SC were con­tent with this solu­tion for the Peat­land ream but dis­cussed options for oth­er lone work­ers in rur­al locations.

2. CS and AS sug­ges­ted: a) The loc­a­tions the rangers patrol is not as remote as the peat­land loc­a­tions. b) With regards emer­gency situ­ations, there is not a require­ment for rangers to have the Garmin devices as the ranger man­agers are con­tent with the PeopleSafe device and ser­vice, and par­tic­u­larly now that it has been taken over and is more user focussed. c) How­ever, con­nectiv­ity is still an issue for making/​receiving calls, and they reques­ted that the rangers also get 22 sim cards. KC To request these sims from IT team.

3. KC asked how we are sup­port­ing oth­er remote work­ers. MP explained that Gav­in had reques­ted a pause for the plan­ning team; Lewis Pâté and Jos Mil­ne have a PeopleSafe device; there is a PeopleSafe device for Jonath­an that is cur­rently being set up; Con­ser­va­tion team have their own apps (Sally, Mat­thew, Rebecca. Car­oline and Hay­ley); the Access team have a shared device and their own apps (Adam, Doug, Vicky, and Andy), but giv­en they work remotely so infre­quently, it was greed that they would buddy up with a ranger on these infre­quent occa­sions. How­ever, there are clear gaps, and some remote work­ers appear to have nothing.

4. PM explained that line man­agers of new staff are always asked to advise facil­it­ies of the remote work­ing kit require­ments. Some line man­agers are fol­low­ing through on this but oth­ers aren’t. It is not the H&SC’s respons­ib­il­ity to identi­fy who requires what, and it was agreed that KC would con­tact the key Heads of Ser­vice of remote work­ers and ask them to con­sider the needs of their remote work­ers and let facil­it­ies know if they require devices.

5. It was dis­cussed that line man­agers don’t all seem to know what their respons­ib­il­it­ies are even though this is clearly set out in policy. KC said the HR team would work with the facil­it­ies steam to devel­op a work­shop for all line man­agers and remote work­ers to bring the lone work­ing policy to life and explain how the buddy sys­tem should be imple­men­ted, and to explain the Garmin and PeopleSafe options. Work­shop to be in place before the sum­mer. In the inter­im, KC to con­tact Heads of Ser­vice and remind them of the Lone Work­ing policy and respons­ib­il­it­ies for their staff.

---

Item 3 Health and Safety Audit

1. KC shared the recent H&S audit report and asked for views. H&SC agreed this was a reas­on­able audit, and agreed all recom­mend­a­tions. H&SC were par­tic­u­larly con­cerned about the poor com­ple­tion rates for the ELMS H&S train­ing. It was agreed that this train­ing is actu­ally very com­pet­ent, and a sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fit to staff. Going for­ward, PM will pro­duce a report of who has/hasn’t com­pleted train­ing to be tabled at the next SMT Policy Day.

2. We spoke about policies and agreed that KC would devel­op a sched­ule of rolling review of policies.

3. BS explained that all H&S policies had been moved to eolas. BS to check with Paul if there was a func­tion whereby staff could be asked to sign that they had read the policy, and also if remind­ers could be set up.

4. BS explained that there will be an over­arch­ing H&S folder on Share­Point and it was agreed that team H&S doc­u­ments would be saved in this folder so that all H&S doc­u­ments were in the same place.

5. H&SC dis­cussed the import­ance of all staff being held to account for their own respons­ib­il­it­ies and it was recom­men­ded that there is a man­dat­ory line in everyone’s job plan high­light­ing their respons­ib­il­ity to do the ELMS train­ing, and read and imple­ment the policies and risk assess­ments, and that PDC’s should review how this is being actions. KC to update Job Plan tem­plate accordingly.

6. Regard­ing the recom­mend­a­tion about train­ing for invest­ig­at­ing A&IR, it was agreed that the ISOH train­ing cov­ers this. PM to arrange IOSH course for ES and refresh­er for PM and KC.

7. It was agreed that SMT need more account­ab­il­ity for H&S and that they as well as Resources Com­mit­tee should also get the H&SC minutes. KC to action.

---

Item 4 Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports (H&SC respons­ible for review­ing all A&IR and mak­ing recom­mend­a­tions accordingly)

1. Three incid­ents: a) A mem­ber of staff had a fall out with the build­ing dur­ing their lunch break, but the A&IR was com­pleted as CNPA first aid kit was admin­istered by a CNPA first aid­er. MP to update AIR form to identi­fy loc­a­tion of 1^st aid sup­plies used so that we can replen­ish accord­ingly. Also to ensure that hard cop­ies of A&IR form are replace with the most up to date form as the one used was about 2 years out of date.

   b) Bog­ging of a vehicle. ES explained the situation:

   i. 2 team members were on a remote location but could not park in the place
   

   they would usu­ally park. They had to find some­where else, and parked on a verge, not hardstanding.

   ii. When they were ready to leave, they tried to reverse and turn around, but
   

   there was a ditch at the loc­al­ity and the wheel went into the ditch and got stuck.

   iii. There was no mobile reception, so they had to walk to a spot where there was
   

   recep­tion and for­tu­nately the con­tract­ors were still on site to assist.

   iv. There was no obvious anchor point for the towing strap to tow them out, and
   

   no guid­ance about tow­ing in the manu­al. How­ever, the con­tract­ors were able to tow them out.

   v. This incident raised a few issues: - the team failed to do walk around the
   

   vehicle and assess if the park­ing place was suit­able for the manœuvre they under­took; there was no guid­ance on how to tow the vehicle.

   vi. H&SC discussed the situation and concluded that in addition to the
   

   recom­mend­a­tions set out in the report about mit­ig­a­tion actions/​behaviours, the Peat­land team required enhanced 4x 4 train­ing that covered tow­ing a vehicle, driv­ing through fjords, 4×4 vehicle recov­ery. Pre­vi­ously such train­ing had not been sup­por­ted as it was felt that might then encour­age people to take the vehicle off road when that was not the pur­pose of hav­ing such vehicles. How­ever, it’s when the unex­pec­ted hap­pens that people get caught out, and we need to ensure that train­ing provides for mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for the worst case scen­ario situations

---

vii. ES to advise HR of the enhanced train­ing require­ments the 4×4 user’s needs, and HR to source train­ing accord­ingly. viii. BS advised that she checked the vehicle manu­al and there was indeed no guid­ance re tow­ing. BS to speak to mech­an­ic at gar­age to get guid­ance re tow­ing and if appro­pri­ate, draft appro­pri­ate guid­ance. ix. BS advised that she checked the vehicle manu­al and there was indeed no guid­ance re tow­ing. BS to speak to mech­an­ic at gar­age to get guid­ance re tow­ing and if appro­pri­ate, draft appro­pri­ate guidance.

c) A staff mem­ber had a fall on ice on the out­door exten­sion ter­race. this incid­ent flagged a lengthy dis­cus­sion about people’s respons­ib­il­it­ies for their own and each other’s safety and we con­cluded the following:

i. All new staff are advised during their office tour induction that we are all

respons­ible for grit­ting pub­lic areas this is not the respons­ib­il­ity of the facil­it­ies team who do not have capa­city to cov­er all spaces by office open/​close time

ii. The Winnter Tool Box Talk explaining people's responsibilities and how to

admin­is­ter grit/​salt was pos­ted to Eolas at the begin­ning of winter, but is clearly being missed

iii. There is a newsletter going out tomorrow. BS to put narrative into the

news­let­ter remind­ing people to salt pub­lic areas if first in.

iv. BS to put a message o the sign-in app reminding staff of their responsibilities.

To be done this week and next as very cold weath­er fore­cast so this is cur­rent and topical.

Item 5 Facil­it­ies maters

1. Review of Sign-in app. a) BS said that when the sign-in app was first intro­duced H&SC made the decision that there should not be an auto­mat­ic clear­ing of any­one who had failed to sign- out. Decision at the time was based on con­cerns that someone may be in the build­ing and have become unwell and there­fore be left alone and unat­ten­ded overnight. b) Now that the app has been in place for sev­er­al months, we would like to revis­it this decision. BS explained that the pur­pose of the app is not to support/​mitigate lone work­ers – it is primar­ily to sup­port fire safety and ensure we are compliant

---

with fire reg­u­la­tions. Cur­rently, if someone doesn’t sign out at night, there are deemed to still be in the office. When they next come into the office and swipe their card, they will be signed out, not in. This then provides a false pic­ture of who is in the build­ing if there were a fire and the fire bri­gade were on site. c) The ​“ask” is that we approve an auto­mated sys­tem whereby any­one who is still signed in at mid­night is ​“wiped” from the sys­tem and there­fore deemed as hav­ing signed out. Any risks of someone being alone in the build­ing after hours and unat­ten­ded is mit­ig­ated by the fact that the clean­ers do a sweep of the build­ing before, they alarm it and only alarm if con­tent that no-one is in the build­ing. d) H&SC approved the request and agreed this was key to ensure fire safety. It was agreed though that we do spot checks to see if there any repeat ​“offend­ers” not sign­ing out, and if this is the case, to raise this with their line man­ager. e) BS to imple­ment auto­mat­ic clearing.

1. Fire Mar­shall train­ing. a) Until now, fire mar­shals have done an extern­ally facil­it­ated fire mar­shal course, and that was all the train­ing they did to qual­i­fy them as fire mar­shals. b) All staff are required to do the ELMS fire safety train­ing. Sev­er­al fire mar­shals have repor­ted back that the extern­al fire mar­shal train­ing was poor, and that everything they were taught at the course was also covered by the ELMS train­ing c) BS has developed an excel­lent site spe­cif­ic course for fire mar­shals to attend. This cov­ers what they actu­ally need to do in our actu­al build­ing if there was a fire. The recom­mend­a­tion is that the ELMS train­ing + the on-site train­ing replaces the extern­al course. This was agreed by the H&SC, and it was agreed that the few addi­tion­al steps that fire mar­shals need to take which isn’t covered by ELMS will be included by BS in the site spe­cif­ic course. d) BS will also speak to the new area fire chief to see if there is any addi­tion­al train­ing fire mar­shals need e.g. how to use a fire extin­guish­er and will either source that or ensure she and MP cov­er that on the on-site course. e) An addi­tion­al mat­ter was that all staff who were cur­rent fire mar­shals and who have done the extern­al train­ing course were invited to do the on site course. Of the 34 or so people only 22 have accep­ted the invit­a­tion, with the oth­ers stat­ing they no longer wish to be fire mar­shals. E.g. because they are only in the office 1 day/​week. BS has writ­ten back explain­ing that due to new hybrid work­ing envir­on­ment, we need more trained fire mar­shals, not less. H&SC agreed that we don’t want to force any­one to be a fire mar­shal, but equally we need to ensure we have suf­fi­cient cov­er. BS to do a map­ping exer­cise to see if exit­ing fire mar­shals will be suf­fi­cient, review­ing their work­ing pat­terns, and work loc­a­tions. And then

---

to con­tact these folk, explain that we may still require them if the map­ping sug­gest insuf­fi­cient cover.

1. Office use dur­ing shut down days. a) BS said this point was to cov­er times the office is used out of hours or on fixed bank hol­i­days (e.g. St Andrews Day). BS has put togeth­er a guid­ance note for those who host meet­ing dur­ing these times, remind­ing them that they need to have a fire mar­shal and 1^st aid­er at these events; lock up pro­ced­ure etc. The guid­ance will have links to the names of fire mar­shals and 1^st aid­ers. BS to pub­li­cise this guid­ance note. b) We also dis­cussed the idea of cir­cu­lat­ing All staff diary invit­a­tions at the begin­ning of the year of office shut down days (includ­ing Christ­mas) for the year, so staff have plenty of notice and also have this in their diar­ies. BS to action once Christ­mas shut down and St Andrews day hol­i­day confirmed.

Item 6 Ranger matters

1. Green Health Link Work­er (Gav­in Hosie/​Louise Emslie) are writ­ing up risk assess­ment and stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ure for meet­ing people when referred by GPs. AS to bring back to H&SC

2. Recruit­ment is now live for sea­son­al rangers. Num­bers will be same as last year. Con­cern is that budget cuts may mean less part­ner ranger cov­er which could put addi­tion­al stress on our team. This to be mon­itored as year progresses.

3. Lucy has repor­ted to AS that she is happy with PeopleSafe as the lobe work­ing sup­port for the team.

Item 7 Peat­land matters

1. Noth­ing fur­ther to report

---

Item 8 AOB

1. MP raised the mat­ter that we no longer have the minibus, and it has been raised that staff occa­sion­ally used the minibus to trans­port long/​heavy pieces of kit to sites. Agreed that due to fact that this is so occa­sion­al, we can­not pur­chase a vehicle spe­cific­ally for this pur­pose. Staff to be advised there­fore to arrange for kit to be delivered to the site, or to arrange for a hire vehicle to trans­port it. KC to flag to SMT for down­ward dissemination

Action Log Action from this meet­ing 11 Janu­ary 2024

Action	Respons­ible per­son and Status
Request Ranger EE sim from IT team.	KC
Con­tact the key Heads of Ser­vice of remote work­ers and ask them to con­sider the needs of their remote work­ers and let facil­it­ies know if they require devices	KC
Con­tact Heads of Ser­vice and remind them of the Lone Work­ing policy and respons­ib­il­it­ies for their staff.	KC
Pro­duce a report of who has/hasn’t com­pleted ELMS train­ing to be tabled at the next SMT Policy Day.	PM
Devel­op a sched­ule of rolling review of H&S policies.	KC
Check with Paul if there was a func­tion whereby staff could be asked to sign that they had read the policy, and also if remind­ers could be set up	BS
Update Job Plan tem­plate with man­dat­ory line about staff mem­bers respons­ib­il­ity re H&S train­ing and policy compliance.	KC
Arrange IOSH course for ES and refresh­er for PM and KC.	PM
Cir­cu­late H&SC minutes for SMT sight and discussion	KC
Update AIR form to identi­fy loc­a­tion of 1st aid sup­plies used so that we can replen­ish accord­ingly. Also to ensure	MP

---

that hard cop­ies of A&IR form are replace with the most up to date form as the one used was about 2 years out of date.
Advise HR of the enhanced train­ing require­ments the 4×4 user’s needs, and HR to source train­ing accordingly	ES
Speak to mech­an­ic at gar­age to get guid­ance re tow­ing and if appro­pri­ate, draft appro­pri­ate guidance.	BS
Put nar­rat­ive into the news­let­ter remind­ing people to salt pub­lic areas if first in.	BS
Put a mes­sage on the sign-in app remind­ing staff of their respons­ib­il­it­ies re salt­ing pub­lic spaces/​access. To be done this week and next as very cold weath­er fore­cast so this is cur­rent and topical	BS
Auto­mat­ic mid night clear­ing of staff still signed in to be implemented	BS
Speak to the new area fire chief to see if there is any addi­tion­al train­ing fire mar­shals need e.g. how to use a fire extin­guish­er and will either source that or ensure she and MP cov­er that on the on-site course	BS
Map­ping exer­cise to see if exit­ing fire mar­shals will be suf­fi­cient, review­ing their work­ing pat­terns, and work loc­a­tions. And then to con­tact these folk, explain that we may still require them if the map­ping sug­gest insuf­fi­cient cover	BS
Pub­li­cise ​“hold­ing meet­ings in office on office shut down days” guidance	BS
Cir­cu­late All Staff diary invit­a­tion for agreed 2024 office shut down dates	BS
Staff to be advised to arrange for kit to be delivered to the site, or to arrange for a hire vehicle to trans­port it. KC to flag to SMT for down­ward dissemination	KC

---

Actions out­stand­ing from pre­vi­ous meetings:

Meet­ing Date	Action	Respons­ible per­son completed
28/09/23	To explore solu­tions to 02 mobile cov­er­age issues and update H&SC
	Buddy Sys­tem to be reviewed and Con­sider a Buddy Sys­tem work­shop for staff	To be delivered by sum­mer 2024
	Line Man­ager leaf­let (work in pro­gress) to include ref­er­ence to lone work­ing procedure.	In pro­gress
	Pro­ced­ure for clos­ing Dee/​Spey partition:	com­pleted
	Green Health Link Work­ers stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ure to come back to H&SC	In pro­gress
July 2023	Mix­er taps in #16 to be explored	Facil­it­ies team seek­ing quotes
May 2023	Fire mar­shal train­ing to emphas­ises point that fire exits/​extinguishers to be left clear	RS — ongo­ing. ELMS train­ing in hand but intern­al fire mar­shal train­ing still to be delivered
14/09/22	H&SC should have sight of team spe­cif­ic risk assessments	CS and ES

---

| 19/07/22 | Safeshores devices to new staff and train­ing for all users | On going | | | Addi­tion­al loch mech­an­ism for main door exten­sion to be invest­ig­ated | On going | | 16/12/21 | All to advise MP once RAs have been updated, so MP can ensure con­sist­ency of tem­plates. | Ongo­ing | | 19/03/19 | Bal­later Pan­ic alarm — the alarm is to be moved to the CNPA office when the office is recon­figured. A peep hole will be put in the intern­al door of the office, as cur­rently staff are not able to see who is at the door if the knock | MP (on hold pending work to com­mence recon­fig­ur­a­tion of office). MP to get a quote any­way to hold on record. |