Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies were received from Councillors R Domleo and P Mason.

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda

Councillor D Flude declared a personal interest as she was a retired member of Unison.

Councillor J Jackson declared a personal interest as she was a member of GMB.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a total period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the Committee on any matter relevant to the work of the Committee.

Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide at least three clear working days’ notice in writing and should include the question with that notice. This will enable an informed answer to be given.  It is not required to give notice of the intention to make use of public speaking provision, however, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours notice is encouraged.

There were no members of the public present.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 13 January 2012

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 13 January 2012 be confirmed as a correct record.  

To consider a report on the progress with Human Resource Issues

The Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development, aided by the HR Strategy & OD Manager and the Corporate Health & Safety Manager, presented a report which provided a general update on Human Resource issues, including Health & Safety, Organisational Development, HR Delivery and HR Policy and Reward.

Health and Safety

It was reported that 764 delegates had attending 50 training courses and briefing session delivered by the Corporate Health & Safety Team during Quarter 3.  Courses provided included Emergency First Aid at Work, Use of PRIME, First Aid at Work and Use of Evac Chair.

The Council had a duty of care to ensure the health, safety and welfare of people who were not in their employment but who may be affected by the activities of their undertaking. A Visitors Policy, detailing the health and safety arrangements which were in place for visitors (including customers, contractors, maintenance personnel, guests, delivery drivers etc) coming onto Cheshire East Council premises had been drafted.  The Visitors Policy had been approved at the Corporate Health and Safety Forum on 2 March 2012 and the Committee was asked to approve the Policy.

The Corporate Health and Safety Policy had been significantly restructured to form two parts: Part 1 - Policy Statement, Introductions and Organisation, and Part 2 - Corporate Policies and Procedures.  The Committee was asked to approve Part 1, which had be approved at the Corporate Health and Safety Forum on 2 March 2012.

The Committee was informed that the RIDDOR Regulations had been amended in order to increase the period for reporting incidents and injuries.  The trigger point after which an injury must be reported would increase, from over three days to over seven days incapacitation and was effective from
6 April 2012.  The deadline by which an over 7-day injury must be reported would also increase to 15 days from the day of the accident.

In Quarter 3 a total of 2002 accidents/incidents were entered onto PRIME, of which 74 were RIDDOR reportable to the Health & Safety Executive.  These figures represented an increase of 46.67% for the total number of accidents and a fall of 14.94% for RIDDOR reports when compared to Quarter 2. 

Organisational Development

The Apprenticeship Scheme now had approximately 70 young people on placements across the Council.  The A-Team was holding a number of roadshows during April to raise awareness of the Apprenticeship Scheme and encourage young people about to leave school or college to consider joining the A-Team.

Work was underway to develop an on-line learning zone for employees and Members.  The web based site would host a range of development tools such as e-learning, learning forums and access to webinars.  The facility complimented other forms of learning such as classroom based, by providing a cost effective and flexible means of learning in bite size pieces.  The site could be accessed from both work and home and would be launched later in the spring.

Work was in progress to refresh the Aspire values and to develop a framework  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.