250124Paper4H&SCMinutes31October

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 4 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2024 Page 1 of 10

Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Minutes 31 Octo­ber 2024

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

Review of minutes and pre­vi­ous actions

1. Minutes reviewed as per action log, and out­stand­ing actions car­ried for­ward. Key points are: a) It seems most staff have now done the lone work­ing and Acci­dent and Incid­ent Report­ing move to Share­Point train­ing. KC to fol­low up with PD if a log was kept of attendees and is there any require­ment for mop-up train­ing b) Act­ive Travel Risk Assess­ment to be pos­ted onto Eolas – KC to action c) Trail­er train­ing has com­menced – CM and BS have done it. Fur­ther train­ing to be arranged for key iden­ti­fied staff – PM to action d) Dis­cussed if 4×4 train­ing a pre­requis­ite for trail­er train­ing. Agreed this wasn’t neces­sary. 4×4 train­ing is provided for staff tra­vers­ing tricky ter­rain, but any mem­ber of staff could use the 4×4 without hav­ing first to do train­ing. e) BS said that the stor­age unit for the trail­er is on a ramp and there­fore dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous to get the trail­er in / out. The facil­it­ies unit is not on a ramp so Colin and Jonath­an are sched­uled to help facil­it­ies move kit out their unit, so that their unit can be used for the trailer.

Driv­ing at work policies and procedures

1. KC explained that there had been a couple of incid­ents over the sum­mer that pro­moted this policy revi­sion, as follows:

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a) A couple staff had expressed some con­cern about the driv­ing skills of a col­league, and the policy wasn’t par­tic­u­larly clear about how this should be handled. b) Anoth­er situ­ation involved iden­ti­fic­a­tion on a Driver and Vehicle Licens­ing Agency (DVLA) form of six points, which meant enhanced inform­a­tion was required by our insurers which we weren’t aware of. c) A situ­ation where a staff mem­ber was reluct­ant to provide us with a copy of their DVLA cer­ti­fic­ate. KC explained that the DVLA cer­ti­fic­ate is a Path Author­ity pro­ced­ure that ensures staff are fit to drive and is there­fore a require­ment for use of pool cars and also per­son­al vehicles if used for the dis­charge of work.

1. There was dis­cus­sion around the fol­low­ing points about the policy: a) Care to be taken to ensure someone is not con­sidered ​“guilty” before being giv­en the right to reply. b) Need to ensure that a con­ver­sa­tion is held with the offend­ing driver quickly after the com­plaint. c) Import­ance of let­ting offend­ing driver know if decision made that no fur­ther action required. d) Con­clu­sion that there may be occa­sions where offend­ing driver can­not be per­mit­ted to drive pending fur­ther action. In these cir­cum­stances every attempt will be made to respect the sens­it­iv­ity of the situ­ation, but key pri­or­ity is the safety of staff, pas­sen­gers and oth­er road users. PM to imple­ment policy changes as above and cir­cu­late tidied policy to Health and Safety Com­mit­tee for final com­ment pri­or to policy sent to Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) for sign off.

2. The recom­mend­a­tion was for the imple­ment­a­tion of a ​“new staff driver log” whereby new staff are required to provide us with key inform­a­tion (insur­ance doc­u­ments, DVLA cer­ti­fic­ate, copy of driver’s licence) before they are per­mit­ted to drive for work. This log to be signed off by driver, line man­ager, facil­it­ies and HR. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee approved this log, which will be imple­men­ted for all new staff going for­ward. PM to ensure this is part of new joiner’s procedures.

3. There was a paper recom­mend­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of man­dat­ory driver train­ing for key roles. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee agreed that all sea­son­al rangers and the peat­land team should get Advanced Driver Train­ing, on the basis that the most dan­ger­ous activ­ity they engage in is driv­ing, and that these staff in par­tic­u­lar are required to drive fre­quently, and on rur­al and remote loc­a­tions, with significant

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haz­ards. OMG to con­sider if there are any oth­er roles that due to fre­quency and nature of driv­ing should also under­go Advanced Driver training

1. “Driv­ing at Work” train­ing is avail­able for any staff where there may be con­cerns about their driv­ing, and if this is deemed appro­pri­ate for them.

2. Where OMG identi­fy mid-risk-level roles, they could do the 60-minute group on-line course recommended.

3. It was agreed that the pre-sea­son ranger brief­ing should include a sec­tion about driv­ing, and the import­ance of driver safety, as well as thor­ough under­stand­ing of the policy – AS and LF to action

Sexu­al Har­ass­ment in the Workplace

1. KC explained that there has been changes to the Equal­ity Act which imposed on employ­ers the duty to pro­act­ively pre­vent sexu­al har­ass­ment in the work­place. She explained that the Dig­nity at Work policy had been revised with a spe­cif­ic sec­tion on sexu­al har­ass­ment. The policy already has very clear report­ing pro­ced­ures in place. Staff train­ing on Elec­tron­ic learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem (ELMS) will be launched shortly. The remain­ing action was to review the risk assess­ments and identi­fy key risk areas and amend accord­ingly. KC will review over­arch­ing cor­por­ate risk assess­ment. AS to review risk assess­ments for rangers, volun­teer rangers and green health work­ers to ensure all rel­ev­ant risk assess­ments take account of the risks and identi­fy appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion, to also con­sider as part of this pro­cess poten­tial implic­a­tions when bud­dy­ing up staff, and also train­ee rangers who are typ­ic­ally young (not­ing power imbal­ance concern)

2. ES did not con­sider the risk to be high for peat­land team – mostly male pro­ject officers work­ing on remote sites with little/​no con­tact with others

Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports

1. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee repor­ted that new sys­tem of hav­ing Acci­dent and Incid­ent Report­ing on Share­Point work­ing well. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee have their own teams’ chan­nel and Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports are also high­lighted on this chan­nel. Agreed that going for­ward, a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee will volun­teer to invest­ig­ate and Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports, but KC will have over­sight and will nom­in­ate someone as invest­ig­at­ing officer if no-one volunteers.

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1. It was agreed that Grant Moir and Dav­id Camer­on should have access to the Acci­dent and Incid­ent Report log, As CEO, Grant is the Account­able Officer, and so should have aware­ness of all health an safety mat­ters. Appro­pri­ate also for Dav­id as Deputy CEO.

2. The fol­low­ing incid­ents were repor­ted and actioned: a) There was an incid­ent involving a staff mem­ber get­ting a tick bite while out­doors for work. Staff mem­ber became unwell and was on anti­bi­ot­ics. Invest­ig­at­ing Officer repor­ted that staff mem­ber had been advised that tick res­ist­ant cloth­ing could be pur­chased as PPE. Staff mem­ber reminded of import­ance of check­ing them­selves after lay­ing in the grass, which they had not done. Inform­a­tion about ticks is cir­cu­lated to staff sea­son­ally, but we will review to ensure still fit for pur­pose. The team involved is already well versed on tick iden­ti­fic­a­tion, and it was due to their exist­ing know­ledge that the staff mem­ber was able to identi­fy need to seek med­ic­al atten­tion. Closed. b) There was an incid­ent where a staff mem­ber had tra­versed a drain in rear car park, caus­ing drain to be dam­aged which in turn caused dam­age to their vehicle. Invest­ig­a­tion iden­ti­fied that bol­lards had been placed on the drains at suit­able inter­vals as a sign to staff not to tra­verse them, and accom­pa­ny­ing pho­tos of the site veri­fied this. No fur­ther action. c) Incid­ent erect­ing gazebo at an event, which caused facial injury as strut hit out due to not being fully exten­ded. No first aid required. Going for­ward team advised to have a risk assess­ment for erect­ing gazebo, to be included in a doc­u­ment they are already pro­du­cing on how to erect the gazebo, and to include advice that someone needs to take over­view role. d) Incid­ent where a piece of wood flew off a passing lorry and hit a car used by staff mem­ber. Invest­ig­a­tion iden­ti­fied this could not have been avoided – per­son was driv­ing appro­pri­ately to con­di­tions. No fur­ther action e) Incid­ent where a three staff were on site vis­it but took a short cut and then got into dif­fi­culty as they stepped into a bog and sub­merged with water to knees/​waist. No injury occurred or dam­age to prop­erty. Invest­ig­a­tion iden­ti­fied need to amend site vis­it risk assess­ment to state not to take short cuts if route unknow, and to ensure they allow adequate time for the vis­it to avoid tempta­tion to seek short cuts. f) Incid­ent where mem­ber of staff fell up the step from bike shel­ter to rear car park at num­ber 16. Incurred some injury. Was wear­ing chunky boots, so acci­dent could

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not have been avoided but a yel­low grit pad has now been installed on the step to alert users of it. Closed.

Green Health Safe­guard­ing Process

1. We have two staff who are link work­ers referred by GPs or self-referred. They typ­ic­ally meet with vul­ner­able people, usu­ally in pub­lic places eg GP sur­gery but in rare occa­sions they may have to meet with an indi­vidu­al in their home. So safe­guard­ing is crit­ic­al. This risk man­age­ment plan sets out emer­gency pro­ced­ures and mech­an­isms to keep our staff safe. Key risk is when they are in someone’s home, but there is strict guid­ance about using the lone work­ing device in these cir­cum­stances, and of course not to enter a home if they don’t feel com­fort­able or have not pre­vi­ously met that per­son in their home. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the fol­low­ing: a) Import­ance of con­sid­er­ing unin­ten­ded con­sequences for our staff deal­ing with vul­ner­able people or people in crisis. AS assured com­mit­tee that there are mech­an­isms in place to mon­it­or and sup­port the men­tal health of our key work­ers. b) It was raised that there may be great­er risk from self-refer­rals, as the ele­ment of GP mon­it­or­ing is missed. AS explained that the team are well versed on and fre­quently do ​“dynam­ic” risks assess­ments. c) PM high­lighted the Nation­al Soci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cruelty to Chil­dren (NSP­CC) train­ing on going into people’s homes and com­mit­tee agreed this would be a good course for our key work­ers. PM to share details of this course with AS.

2. Com­mit­tee flagged that the new sexu­al har­ass­ment rules will need to be con­sidered, and risk mit­ig­a­tion included in this risk man­age­ment plan. AS to action with the Green Health team

Peat­land team matters

1. ES repor­ted that the Garmin devices had not been work­ing effect­ively over the last month, with regards to the map track­ing ser­vice. She repor­ted this to Garmin this week and noticed today that it is work­ing so this issue has hope­fully been rec­ti­fied. She will keep an eye on it but repor­ted that the team are very good about ensur­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions in oth­er ways.

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Facil­it­ies matters

1. Fire alarms in the sheds. BS repor­ted that we now have fire alarms set up in the sheds. If a call point or smoke detect­or is activ­ated, the alarm will sound out­side only and not in the main build­ing, although it will be heard in the main build­ing. It was set up this way as dust can set off the alarm, so it may go off reg­u­larly and we did not want to dis­rupt users in the main office too much. The evac­u­ation pro­pos­al is that if the alarm activ­ates, the fire mar­shal should invest­ig­ate, and if there is no issue. No fur­ther action is required. But if there is a fire the fire mar­shal should come into the main build­ing and press the call point which will prompt evac­u­ation. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee agreed this seemed a reas­on­able approach. BS to noti­fy fire mar­shals of this approach; BS to let staff know that a single out­side alarm does not prompt an evac­u­ation, but the main build­ing alarm does; BS to arrange four-weekly test­ing of shed fire alarms.

2. Stor­age of fixed blade sheath knives. Volun­teer rangers require use of the knives. The ​“safe sys­tem” of stor­age is that they are locked in a box, which is stored in a locked shed. The key to the box is then loc­ated in the main build­ing. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee felt this was reas­on­able but reques­ted that there is a risk assess­ment in place for this kit. AS will dis­cuss with volun­teer ranger managers

Action log Actions from this meet­ing 30 Octo­ber 2024

Action	Respons­ible per­son and status
Fol­low up with PD if a log was kept of attendees and is there any require­ment for mop-up training	KC
Act­ive Travel Risk Assess­ment to be pos­ted onto Eolas	KC
Out­stand­ing trail­er train­ing to be arranged	PM
Agreed Driv­ing at Work policy changes to be imple­men­ted and tidied policy cir­cu­lated to Health and Safety Com­mit­tee for final com­ment pri­or to policy sent to SMT for sign off	PM
New Driver Log to be added to HR new join­er procedures	PM

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con­sider if there are any oth­er roles that due to fre­quency and nature of driv­ing should also under­go Advanced Driver train­ing	OMG
Pre-sea­son ranger brief­ing should include a sec­tion about driv­ing, and the import­ance of driver safety, as well as thor­ough under­stand­ing of the policy	AS and LF
Cor­por­ate Sexu­al Har­ass­ment risk assess­ment to be undertaken	KC
Ranger team sex har­ass­ment RA to be under­taken, and also to be included in Green Health Key Work­ers Safe Sys­tems procedures	AS and LF
NSP­CC train­ing on going into people’s homes to be shared with AS	PM
Noti­fy fire mar­shals of shed for alarm approach; let staff know that a single out­side alarm does not prompt an evac­u­ation, but the main build­ing alarm does; arrange 4‑weekly test­ing of shed fire alarms.	BS/​facilities team
Check that there is a risk assess­ment for volun­teer ranger knives	AS

Actions from pre­vi­ous meet­ing – 30 July 2024

Action	Respons­ible per­son and Status
The PPE policy should be updated to refence bike kits	MP — done
Update the Act­ive Travel risk assess­ment in line with Health and Safety Com­mit­tee com­ments and then cir­cu­late to staff Needs added to list of cor­por­ate RAs users can select as rel­ev­ant on indi­vidu­al RA form	CS – done. Needs to go on to Eolas. (KC)
Update lone work­ing policy should be adjus­ted to reflect gen­er­al rule that dur­ing office hours, buddy should be a work colleague.	KC — done
To advise staff that the lone work­ing and A&IR sys­tems train­ing is mandatory	PD — done. To check who missed it.

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Deliv­er above train­ing accord­ingly.	PD and BS – done
Demo/​training to be delivered to SMT	PD — done
Amend AIR form to provide detail about what to do/​who to con­tact in the event of a ser­i­ous incident.	PD and AS — done
Ensure the cor­por­ate Acci­dent and Incid­ent Report­ing form cap­tures any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion that the rangers form provides and then the rangers will use the same form.	PD and AS — done
Health Walks incid­ents to be tran­scribe onto the new cor­por­ate form.	AS and MW – not yet completed
Devel­op spe­cif­ic forms for 1) vehicle dam­age iden­ti­fied but not while driv­ing and 2) doc­u­ment to cap­ture key points from a road traffic incid­ent while vehicle in use for then being tran­scribed onto Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports on Share­Point form. And to also provide this inform­a­tion at the training.	BS — done
Find out at OMG who trail­er users will be so that HR can arrange that they do the train­ing and also so that BS can com­mu­nic­ate with them the key user points	KC — done. BS to pub­li­cise on Eolas trail­er and train­ing pro­cess for those who want to use it

Actions from meet­ing 18 April 2024

Action	Respons­ible per­son and Status
Fire extin­guish­er training	BS
Dis­play Screen Equip­ment (DSE) actions:	In hand and on-going
• Research to see if WFH DSE opt-out is accept­able• How long should we retain the DSE forms• Quarterly report of DSE issues to be tabled at Health and Safety Com­mit­tee meet­ings• DSE time­frames to be investigated

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• Amend word­ing re line man­ager aware­ness of DSE issues• Add word­ing about seek­ing med­ic­al advice• DSE home­work­ing form to be cir­cu­lated• DSE to be migrated to Share­Point• Office based DSE to be con­sidered and brought back to Health and Safety Committee
Con­sid­er­a­tion is vehicle reg plates can be bolted onto vehicles	Facil­it­ies
Report back to Health and Safety Com­mit­tee incid­ent on Health walk	AS

Out­stand­ing Actions from – 11 Janu­ary 2024

Action	Respons­ible per­son and Status
Devel­op a sched­ule of rolling review of Heath and Safety 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

Actions out­stand­ing from longer stand­ing meetings

Meet­ing Date	Action	Respons­ible person
28/09/23	Green Health Link Work­ers stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ure to come back to Health and Safety Committee	Done at 2024 Q4 meeting
19/07/22	Addi­tion­al loch mech­an­ism for main door exten­sion to be investigated	On going

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19/03/19	Bal­later Pan­ic alarm — the alarm is to be moved to the Park Author­ity 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.