Safety, health, environment and wellbeing (SHEW) operational policy

The management of Safety, Health, Environment & Wellbeing (SHEW) is integral to and equal with any other business function. This enables our organisation to meet its objective of managing and conducting its work activities in such a way as to protect the environment and ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety, health and wellbeing at work of all its employees and others who may be affected by its business activities.

CITB is committed to the continual improvement of its business in terms of safety health, environment and wellbeing. It will meet the requirements of all applicable legislation, relevant standards and customer requirements.

CITB’s corporate strategy for health, safety, environment and wellbeing (SHEW) (External link - Opens in a new tab or window) has identified the following objectives:

Health and safety

• No harm or ill health to CITB employees
• No harm or ill health to learners and visitors on our sites and premises
• Provision of a safe and healthy working environment that creates an excellent Health and Safety Culture and promotes the reporting of all incidents and near misses.

Wellbeing 

• A holistic approach to ensuring good health and wellbeing provision to all employees to improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing and work life balance.
• New health and wellbeing policies implemented to improve employees’ health & wellbeing.
• A programme of health and wellbeing activities and interventions to support all employees and to achieve a reduction in sickness absence rates.

The environment

• A programme to reduce our carbon footprint
• Ensure our supply chain meets our organisations environmental commitments

Policy scope

This operational policy covers:

• All activities carried out by CITB that includes office activities, training activities and mobile working, at all CITB locations and contained within the physical boundaries of those locations.
• CITB colleagues are duty bound to follow the requirements of this policy even when working at another’s premises.

This Statement of intent does not cover partnership organisation, colleges, and training providers (not limited) that CITB works with and has influence and involvement.

This Policy applies to all people who work for or advise CITB including permanent, fixed term or temporary staff, contractors, interim staff under contract, people on work experience and agency workers.

As the key decision-making body, the CITB Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance, strategic direction and monitoring of CITB’s SHEW management system performance against the agreed SHEW policy.

Our Executive management team works to deliver the strategy set by the Board.

The Executive has full accountability for SHEW within CITB.

CITB’s HSE Manager is responsible for the day-to-day management of SHEW within CITB. Their role is to:

• provide and manage a management system that meets the diverse requirements of CITB’s organisation and strategic direction.
• provide advice to the business on legal and other requirements in relation to SHEW compliance.
• be responsible for delivering on the strategic direction as set by the CITB Board and Executive.

The CITB People Director is responsible for the delivery of CITB Health, Safety and Wellbeing provision.

From June 2020 the day-to-day management of Safety, Health and Wellbeing will be the responsibility of the Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HSW) Advisor. Management of the Environment will be by the Corporate Responsibility Manager.

All CITB employees are responsible for ensuring their own safety and the safety of others that may be affected by their actions or omissions. All employees are expected to follow the requirements of all applicable legislation, guidance, advice and best practice.

All employees must follow the requirements set out in CITB policies, procedures, work instructions and risk assessments, which includes the requirement to report any unsafe acts or conditions to their line manager and via the SHEW safety management system.

All employees must report all incidents (however minor) to their line manager and on the SHEW system.

Some employees have additional specific duties, these are:

• Fire marshal
• First aider (physical and mental health)
• DSE assessor
• SHEW representative

Training is given for these additional roles and managers / supervisors will ensure time is allocated to allow the individual to carry out these duties.

CITB operates a SHEW management system. The management system contains all SHEW policies. The management system is accessible to all CITB employees.

The system is structured into various areas such as:

• Policies
• Procedures and work instructions
• Health and wellbeing
• Risk assessments
• Incident reporting
• SHEW action groups
• Audits
• DSE 

The Corporate Responsibility Leadership Group (CRLG) has been formed with leadership team colleagues supported by the attendance of technical experts.

It brings together wider corporate responsibility activities that also include Health, Safety, Environment, Wellbeing, Safeguarding and FIR under the headline banner of corporate responsibility. The CRLG will:

• Provide corporate oversight and strategic direction to the organisation in respect of overall CR Policy, within context of framework set by Executive and Board.
• Monitor CR activities to ensure progress against strategic direction.
• Review and make fully costed recommendations to the Executive in order to add value and deliver benefits to the business by successfully embedding the core CR principles.

The SHEW action group consider matters of safety, health, environment and wellbeing as they affect staff and others in their area, and will make recommendations for improvements.

The group review all accidents and incidents of ill health that have occurred. They also monitor safety in the workplace. The group is chaired by an appointed senior manager. The chair may also invite other members of staff to attend meetings whom they feel may provide assistance and advice to the group.

SHEW information is communicated to staff is via a number of channels including:

• Colleague induction programme
• Executive strategic direction
• CRLG
• SHEW Action Group
• Team meetings
• Staff training
• The HUB
• Director Blogs and Monday Morning Memos
• SHEW Management system
• HSE and H&W Yammer Groups
• CITB internal communications
• Emails
• Safety Alerts
• Office notice boards.

There are certain procedures for all CITB colleagues regardless of job role, team or location. These procedures are for the whole of CITB operations, and include but are not limited to the following:

• HSE risk assessments
• First aid
• Fire arrangements
• Communication and consultations
• Safety training
• DSE
• Incident reporting
• Mobile and lone working
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Further procedures / work instructions are available for specific teams, including:

• NCC training including the product areas for plant, construction and access
• Estates and facilities including portable appliance testing, asbestos management and registers and contractor control
• Residential, welfare and security

Work instructions are specific to the actual task and set out how to achieve the desired outcome safely and healthily. Work instructions include equipment necessary, PPE requirements, first aid requirements, environmental issues and emergency procedures. Work instructions can consist of step by step instructions, plans, drawings etc.

Specific work instructions are in place for:

• Scaffold structures
• Steeple jacks and lightning conductors
• Rope access
• Confined spaces training
• Suspended ceiling and partitions
• Concreting
• Steel fixing
• Plant operations
• Lifting operations
• Plant maintenance 

Pro-active monitoring is carried out by a programme of audits and inspections.

Audits are planned in advance with the frequency of audits dependant on level of risk. High risk activities are audited more frequently than low risk activities. Audits may be specific, such as for a legislation or standard clause audit, site / location based or across sites, or be general in their approach.

The audits undertaken are to check compliance with legislation, applicable standards and CITB’s own internal policies and procedures. Any non-conformity is raised as an action with the appropriate manager, together with a timescale for implementation. 

CITB is also audited by external assessors from BSI against the OHSAS18001 health and safety standard and the ISO14001 environmental standard.

Inspections are routinely carried out. These may be pre-planned or unannounced and provide assurance that standards are being maintained at all times. Inspections can be by work place, machinery, PPE, working behaviours. If an inspection identifies a concern or issue, a non-conformity will be raised for the relevant manager.

Braden Connelly
Director of Products and Services, CITB
January 2020

• Policy owner: Braden Connelly, Director of Products and Services
• Policy prepared by: Jon Plumb, Health, Safety and Environment Manager
• Input provided by: Information gathered from health and safety management system and SHE Assure, existing CITB policies and reviews of previous years' health and safety performance.