Major Overhaul Of Health and Safety At Council

Management at the Invercargill City Council admit there are too many health and safety incidents and near misses being reported, and a major overhaul of the system is underway.

At yesterday’s Risk and Assurance Committee, councillors thrashed out the issues at length, which at times became heated, and discussions tense.

New chief risk officer Andrew Cameron pointed out to the committee that time and time again reports had come to council, and nothing had been questioned until now.

Over the past six months there had been 30 ‘near misses’ either by council staff or contractors, and councillors demanded answers.

“What do we do with near misses?” Ian Pottinger asked.  “Is it dropping a chainsaw and missing your foot or a paper cut?” he said.

Andrew outlined the fact that obviously with something more serious there is an investigation.

He urged councillors to not focus so much on the near misses “when you actually have adverse outcomes.”

But Cr Grant Dermody said he felt the council was focusing more on outcomes than prevention and that was a worry.

Cr Darren Ludlow jumped to council’s defence saying that by not reporting near misses would show a lack of vigilance.

Mayor Nobby Clark told the committee council was “horribly exposed” if they had a serious workplace accident – but a new manager of Health and Safety had recently been appointed, and another officer was due to start soon.

Committee chair Bruce Robertson pulled the meeting back into line by saying it was clear that the council was outside of what it had set itself as a risk tolerance of health and safety.

“It’s a very serious situation.”

Andrew continued that 80% of council’s work was done through contractors, and therefore one of its biggest risks.

“I think sometimes we don’t recognise our responsibility for contractors.”

A major health and safety risk assessment would be carried out in May, once all of the experts were onboard, and a report would come back to the committee and council then.

Council was also working on its own internal workplace plan to make several changes in the interim – these included a stocktake of all hazards.

“This is not a quick fix.  It requires an entire culture change,” Mayor Clark said.

Bruce concluded that hopefully both council management and the committee were strongly unified in their approach, to improve the health and safety of the organisation.