Agenda item

The Committee is asked to consider the Health and Safety Law Enforcement Plan prior to its adoption by the Council.

The Acting Commercial Team Manager gave a presentation in respect of the Council’s Commercial Health and Safety Service.

The presentation included: the legislation governing the service, an outline of the work carried out by the Council’s Commercial Health and Safety Team,  an outline of the steps that businesses had to undertake to comply with health and safety regulations, details of the sanctions available for cases of non-compliance and examples of enforcement work undertaken in Bracknell Forest.

The Head of Environmental Health presented the Health and Safety Law Enforcement Plan 2011/12. 

The Health and Safety Law Enforcement Plan set out an overview of the work carried out during the 2010/11 municipal year and detailed the work that would take place during the 2011/12 municipal year and how this work would be carried out.

In 2010/11 a total of 501 health and safety inspections and visits had been carried out.  Of these:

• 85 had been programmed inspections and 213 were first visits to the business
• 33 had been advisory visits
• 29 had been revisits to follow up on issues of non-compliance
• 16 had been in relation to accidents
• The remaining 125 visits had been made either in response to complaints or enquiries from members of the public and other visits where previous visits had identified the business as being closed or not trading at that time.

Of the 207 enforcement actions taken during 2010/11: informal improvement notices had been issued in 191 cases, formal notices had been issued in 12 cases, there had been one prosecution, two immediate prohibition notices issued and one Simple Caution given.

Arsing from members questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         Inspections carried out by the Health and Safety Team covered business premises only.  Home workers were not considered to be high risk and the Health and Safety Team did not inspect these businesses

·         Inspection visits were carried out during normal business hours i.e. 9am to 5pm however out-of-hours inspections did take place when necessary

·         The number of inspections that took place in 2010/11 was more than double the number that had taken place the previous year (230 visits compared to 170 visits).  This was due to the introduction of new guidance from the Health and Safety Executive which stated that local authorities should review low risk businesses every five years

·         It was considered that the increased number of Enforcement Actions in 2010/11 compared to 2009/10 (207 compared to 62) was down to the increased number of inspections that took place

·         A five year rolling programme of caravan site inspections was in place and three sites were scheduled for inspection during 2010/11

·         By law animal establishments had to be relicensed annually and an inspection had to take place before a licence could be issued

·         Where necessary the Health and Safety Team would liaise with other agencies for example in instances concerning the storage of flammable chemicals the Fire Service would be contacted for advice and assistance

·         Inspection of Mobile Traders did not take into consideration the road worthiness of a vehicle.  Health and Safety inspections covered health and safety matters whilst trading on site

·         Details of the number of street trader inspections carried out and the number of enforcement notices issued would be circulated to the Committee

RESOLVED that the Health and Safety Law Enforcement Plan for 2011-2012, as set out in the appendix of the report, be adopted by the Council.