ANNUAL HEALTH AND SAFETY REPORT : 2002/2003

The Department of Trade and Industry is committed to complying with all legal requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) 1974, and all other relevant statutory provisions and regulations, guidance notes, codes and approved codes of practice. Health and safety policies and arrangements are in place to meet this commitment. Health and safety is treated with the same importance and managed through the line like any other operational function.

The Departments HQ operational activities are predominantly office based. The significant health and safety risks faced by staff and associated control strategies are:

- muscoskeletal injuries associated with the use of display screen equipment and manual handling tasks. Those staff at risk of injury have been provided with health and safety information and training, and risk assessed;

- fire and other emergency incidents. Staff have been provided with an emergency plan and incident control teams have been established and trained to deal with emergency situations;

- slips, trips and falls. High standards of housekeeping are maintained. Workplaces are subject to regular inspection and remedial action;

- electrical equipment. Equipment is subject to visual inspection, maintenance and testing. There are strict limitations on what equipment can be used in the workplace;

- passive smoke. Staff can only smoke in designated areas;

- hygiene and environmental comfort factors. The Department complies with the requirements of the Workplace Regulations. Maintenance and statutory inspections of plant, equipment and installations are carried out;

- chemical, microbiological and deleterious materials hazards. Full complinace with statutory requirements and risk assessments are carried out. Systematic water sampling and testing is in place. Asbestos registers have been established and the removal of asbestos is managed under controlled conditions.

Risk assessments, and associated risk control and management strategies, are also is place for those staff, and those whom form part of the Department's undertaking, undertaking specialist work in potentially harmful environments.

The Department is committed to providing a safe working environment for staff which is without risk to health; providing systems and working practices for the maintenance of fabric, plant and equipment and the management of materials which are safe and without risks to the health and welfare of staff; providing adequate welfare and first aid facilities; providing sufficient information, instruction, training and supervision to ensure staff work in a safe manner; conducting its undertaking in such a way that visitors and contractors are not exposed to risks to their health and safety. The Department actively seeks the support of its staff and works in partnership with its contractors to achieve these aims.

The Department's Permanent Secretary is ultimately responsible for health and safety in the Department. For Departmental Agencies this responsibility is delegated to Agency Chief Executives who are responsible for all health and safety matters in their Agency. Agency Chief Executives submit an annual report on health and safety to their Agency Steering Boards. For DTI headquarters, health and safety responsibility is delegated to the Director General, Services Group. The Director General, Services Group submits an annual report on health and safety covering DTI headquarters to the Departmental Management Board.

In DTI Headquarters the Department's Estates and Facilities Management Directorate, which is part of the Services Group, is responsible for co-ordinating health and safety arrangements and conducting all necessary risk assessments; carrying out inspections of the workplace; providing staff with health and safety information, instruction and training; investigating the causes of accidents and near misses and co-ordinating any remedial action; ensuring that contractors and visitors are aware of their responsibilities, and monitoring contractors performance; and in its capacity as the Departmental intelligent customer for health and safety provide information, advice and guidance to Departmental Agencies and non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs).

Health and safety policies and practices are benchmarked against other government departments and large organisations. Accident statistics are collated and benchmarked against data published by regulatory bodies. The Department is committed to playing its part in supporting the Government's Revitalising Health and Safety initiative, and has reviewed its information collection systems in order to ensure it has robust and relevant baseline data to measure current and future performance. The Department has from January 2002 been monitoring the safety performance of its contractors in line with the Office Of Government Commerce (OGC) Construction Procurement Guidance Number 10 which forms part of the Achieving Excellence Through Health and Safety initiative being championed by OGC. This includes benchmarking the Accident Incidence Rate (AIR) and the Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) for construction works carried on the Department's premises.

The Department has suffered no fatalities or dangerous occurrences as defined under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1996 (RIDDOR), been served with any health and safety enforcement notices or convicted of any breach of health and safety statutory requirement. During the year a major review was carried out on the management and prevention of legionellosis in water storage and distribution systems following outbreaks of the disease within the UK. Major challenges for the forthcoming year will be to ensure the Department, its Agencies and NDPBs fully comply with the management requirements of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002, and as the Department adopts more flexible working practices meets the safety and ergonomic requirements evolving from the adoption of these practices.

The Department encourages the setting up of safety committees and the appointment of trade union appointed safety representatives to cover all its buildings to consider local health and safety matters and to promote a safe working environment. The chair of each committee is a senior member of staff from the buildings covered by the health and safety committee. Safety representatives are also invited to join workplace safety inspections. The Department also consults with the Departmental and local Trade Union Sides on Departmental and Local health and safety policies respectively.

The number of RIDDOR reportable accidents, non-reportable accidents, and working days lost for reportable and non-reportable accidents are set out in tables A, B & C below with supporting comments.

TABLE A : RIDDOR REPORTABLE ACCIDENTS

Reported rate of injuries per 100,000 employees as reported to all enforcing authorities in 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 (provisional) for financial intermediation (except insurance and pension funding) were 95 and 140 respectively, for insurance and pension funding (except compulsory social security) were 54 and 43 respectively, and for and activities auxiliary to financial intermediation were 16 and 47 respectively. The Departmental rate is comparable with, or combinations of, these reported rates.

TABLE B : NON-REPORTABLE ACCIDENTS

The major causes were slips, trips and falls, cuts and grazes, and manual handling incidents.

TABLE C : WORKING DAYS LOST FOR REPORTABLE AND NON-REPORTABLE ACCIDENTS

The cause, working days lost and % of total sickness absence potentially lost to mental illness and other occupational health problems are set out in table D below for 2001/2002, 2000/2001 & 1999/2000 (data for 2002/2003 is not yet available). This data has been extracted from total sickness absence data. In many cases the causes of the problem are likely to have a strong non-work element associated with them, and in some cases the principal elemental cause will be non-work. Whilst there is a noticeable increase in all areas in 2000/2001 compared to 1999/2000, 2001/2002 shows a levelling out and in some areas an improvement. It is pleasing to note a decrease in the number of days lost to back pain, which reflects the effort which has been put in to educate staff on manual handling and looking after your back.

TABLE D : OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH DATA

The estimated salaried cost to the Department based on DTI's ready reckoner and assuming an average staff range of R5/R6 was £12K for reportable and non-reportable injuries in 2002/2003, and potentially £660K for occupational ill-health in 2001/2002.