HSG65, which is not certifiable, was first prepared by the HSE in 1991 as a practical guide for directors, managers, health and safety professionals and employee representatives who wanted to improve health and safety in their organisations.
The message it conveys is simple: organisations need to manage health and safety with the same degree of expertise and to the same standard as other core business activities, if they are to control risks effectively and prevent harm.
The guide provides sound advice on good practice in health and safety management. Some of the actions it advocates go beyond what is strictly required by legislation, for example, there is no general, legal duty to audit.
In any management system, involving employees and their representatives can make a key contribution to securing the objectives, such as improving health and safety.
The system framework, together with legal requirements, also provides the basis for Inspectors when auditing an organisation's arrangements for managing health and safety.
HSG65 has five key elements:
- policy;
- organising;
- planning and implementing;
- measuring performance; and
- auditing and reviewing performance.
Suggestions for implementing these five key elements are set out below:
Policy
First, your health and safety policy should set a clear direction for the organisation to follow and contribute to all aspects of business performance (see the appendix in managing occupational health and safety responsibilites for an example policy). Continuous improvement should be the goal. Your policy should also consider:
- responsibilities to people and the environment in ways which meet the spirit and the letter of the law; and
- stakeholders' expectations (e.g. shareholders, employees, customers or society at large) together with methods of satisfying them.
Cost effective procedures should be identified for protecting your staff and physical assets from injury and damage.
Organising
Your policy should detail the management structure and arrangements (see managing occupational health and safety responsibilites). Your staff need to be motivated to work safely and to protect their long-term health, not simply to avoid accidents. The arrangements should include details of:
Visible and active leadership by your senior managers will help foster a shared understanding of your organisation's vision, values and beliefs towards a positive health and safety culture.
Planning
A planned and systematic approach to implementing your health and safety policy (through an effective health and safety management system) will help to minimise risks. Risk assessment methods, described in risk assessments, will help you decide on priorities and objectives for eliminating hazards and reducing risks.
Wherever reasonably practicable, try to remove risks through selection and design of facilities, equipment and processes. If risks cannot be removed, consider the use of physical controls or, as a last resort, formal systems of work and personal protective equipment. (The Hierarchy of Control, as incorporated in the Management Of Health and Safety At Work Regulations 1999 (r4, ACoP 30) and Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, as amended.)
You should establish performance standards for measuring achievement and specify actions to promote a positive health and safety culture.
Measuring performance
Active self-monitoring (i.e. measuring your performance against agreed standards over a set period) will help reveal how effectively your health and safety management system is functioning. The measures you use can include:
- accidents, expressed as a number or, more usefully, a rate;
- days lost through injuries at work, expressed as a number or a rate;
- cases of work-related ill health, expressed either as a number or a rate
- numbers of safety training days conducted; and
completion of actions identified by risk assessments
Performance measures, such as those listed above, or others as appropriate to your circumstances, should cover premises, plant and substances as well as people, procedures and systems. You should also include the behaviour and performance of individuals through an annual appraisal system, or similar.
If controls fail, your reactive monitoring should discover why, through accident and/or ill health investigations of incidents which may have caused harm or loss (see accidents). Your objectives for active and reactive monitoring should be to:
- determine the immediate causes of sub-standard performance; and
- identify the underlying causes and the implications for the design and operation of the health and safety management system.
Longer-term objectives should also be monitored.
Auditing and reviewing performance
A systematic review of your performance (based on in-house monitoring and independent audits) will enable your organisation to establish the changes needed to meet the aims of your policy.
Auditing and review is the basis of self-regulation. Your company’s strong commitment to continuous improvement should include the constant development of policies and systems, and other means of controlling risk.
You should assess your performance by:
- regular reporting and analysis of key performance indicators; and
benchmarking against the performance of business competitors and best practice, irrespective of employment sector.
Performance should be summarised in annual reports.