Health and Safety Auditing

Health and safety auditing is a very specific process which investigates your current systems against set criteria.

Performance Health and Safety follows the new HSE Health and Safety Methodology of Plan, Do, Check, Act.
This is similar to the previous Guidance 65 (HSG65) - Successful Health and Safety Management. The 5 elements are Policy, Organisation, Planning and Implementation, Monitoring and Review and finally Audit the whole process. All these fit in with the PDCA methodology for continual improvement which is so important in ISO standards. Especially the new ISO 45001 H&S management standard introduced in 2018.

The policies you have in place must demonstrate a commitment from management to manage health and safety and a health and safety policy statement must be in place as well.

The Organisational element includes details of who will do what and what they are responsible for.

The Planning and Implementation relates to the Arrangements that you have in place to manage all relevant elements of health and safety. Each relevant section will explain what you will do and who is responsible and this is usually done with a risk assessment for each element and a document demonstrating ongoing control.

The Monitoring and Review section is measured by looking at what you have in place to demonstrate control, communication, co-ordination and competence. This is reflected in the training you have in place, all the records for health and safety, how you carry out ongoing checks and communication with employees and if you have a health and safety management system in place. Ultimately your own inspections and procedures will also demonstrate this.

The report we produce will indicate if you are compliant, partly compliant or not compliant for each element of the report and provide you with a summary of what we found for each arrangement element which is measured against the legal regulation for the specific element. Recommendations are made of how you can achieve compliance for each element and in some instances it is useful to provide you with a photograph of a specific issue we found, which will give you a clear understanding of the condition and what can be done about it. Each recommendation will be provided with a suggested rating of importance, being High, Medium or Low and these can be matched to time frames as Immediate, 2 - 4 months and 4 months or more for action to be taken.

You may have other audits and reviews taking place which are related to health and safety such as food safety and insurance inspections. These also indicate that you are monitoring your health and safety in an indirect way.

The aim of the audit is to give you a status report of health and safety in your organisation. This will then provide you with a comprehensive report for board members, governors, share holders and also enforcement agencies. The recommended actions will then allow you to manage tasks and implement measures of improvement which will demonstrate active safety management and where the risks in the business lie.

Auditing is a smart way of doing business and moving forward. It can also identify ways to save money and improve efficiency.

Audit Elements

Policy
Organisation & Responsibilities
Asbestos
Catering
Child Protection and DBS
Contractor Control
COSHH
Display Screen Equipment
Equality Act and SENDA
Electrical Safety
First Aid and Accidents
Fire Safety
Gas Safety
Risk Assessments
Housekeeping
Legionella Water Management
Lifting Equipment
Maintenance and Grounds
Manual Handling
New and Expectant Mothers
Noise
Personal Protective Equipment
Pest Control
Pressure Systems
Safeguarding
School Trips
Security
Transport
Waste management
Wellbeing
Work at Height and Ladders
Work and Play Equipment
Workplace and Welfare
Young Persons
School Premises and Facilities -
Art, Design Technology
Medical, Sick Bay, Infirmary
Minibuses and Transport
Science
Sports Activities
Sport Facilities
Theatre, Drama and Music
Traffic Control
Trees
Written Schemes
Training
Control
Records
Review