Local Authority Health and Safety Return 2009/2010

(This return relates to the period 1/4/2009 to 31/3/2010)

HSE use onlyLA Code Number LA type

1945 / London Borough Metropolitan District Urban/industrial Suburban Resort/retirement Rural Scottish urban Scottish rural Other type Welsh urban Welsh Rural

Local Authority Name

Watford Borough Council

If not sending this form electronically please forward to:

Health & Safety Executive

Chief Scientific Adviser’s Group (CSAG)

4S.3 Redgrave Court

Merton Road

Bootle

By 28 May 2010

Merseyside, L20 7HS

Guidance on filling in the form is attached. Please read it carefully first.

If you need any help completing this form please contact CSAG on 0151 951 4862/4541 or email:

Once completed, please email the form to .

If you have the total for a particular question but not the constituent parts, enter just the total.

 If the value of a box is zero then please insert a ‘0’, otherwise leave blank the boxes for which you do not have details.

If you cannot fill in any aspect of this form, please contact us.

Part A: Summary of local authority activity and resource

1) Number of local authority enforced premises and visits(excluding petroleum licensing visits)

PROACTIVE VISITS / REVISITS / REACTIVE VISITS
Type of premises (examples are included in the guidance) / (a) Total Number of Premises at 31/3/2010 / (b)1 Planned Visits / (c)2 Other Planned Visits (based on risk rating) / (d1) Revisits / (d2) Other revisits (based on risk rating) / (e) Visits to Investigate Accidents / (f) Visits following requests for Health & Safety service received by LAs / (g) Other Visits / (h) Total visits (columns b to g) (auto calc’d) / (i) OTHER CONTACTS e.g. mailshots, SAQs3
1. Retail shops / 778 / 0 / 11 / 0 / 9 / 9 / 9 / 0 / 38 / 18
2. Wholesale / 159 / 0 / 12 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 2 / 0 / 17 / 2
3. Offices / 594 / 0 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 4 / 10
4. Catering, restaurants and bars / 260 / 12 / 6 / 2 / 7 / 5 / 4 / 0 / 36 / 22
5. Hotels, camp sites and other short - stay accommodation / 10 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 2 / 2
6. Residential care homes / 36 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 3 / 2
7. Leisure and cultural services / 74 / 0 / 2 / 0 / 1 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 5 / 0
8. Consumer services / 127 / 9 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 14 / 4
9. Other premises (not classified above) / 5 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 1 / 1 / 5 / 0 / 10 / 0
TOTALS / 2043 / 21 / 46 / 2 / 21 / 19 / 24 / 0 / 133 / 43

1Proactive inspections recorded covering former Fit3 topics or other planned visits as part of projects/campaigns or joint initiatives.

2 Other planned visits and inspections, which do not pick up on former FIT3 topics e.g. licensing, legionella

3SAQs- self assessment questionnaires

The following notes contain guidance to help complete Question 2 - overleaf

Below are some examples of staff resources and details of how to record this information in the table. This is not an exhaustive list of examples, it is merely intended to demonstrate some of the different types of situations possible in local authorities.

Full-time hours - examples

A Chief Environmental Health Officer/Director of health and safety working full time but who spends only 5% of his/her time on management of health and safety work.

A Principal Environmental Health Officer working full time managing a specialist health and safety team.

A Principal Environmental Health Officer working full time managing a food safety team, who estimates 20% of his/her work involves managing health and safety.

Three EHOs/ TOs working full time in an Environmental Health Department, each spending half their time enforcing health and safety.

Inspectors(1) working full-time hours (include those who spend either all or some of their time enforcing (or managing) health and safety).
Number of inspectors / Percent of time spent on health & safety
1
(full- time PEHO)
1
(full-time CEHO)
1
(full-time PEHO)
3
(3 full-time EHO/TOs) / 100%
(all time on h&s)
5%
(5% of time on h&s)
20%
(20% of time on h&s)
50%
(each spends 50% of time on h&s)

Part-time hours - examples

An EHO / TO working half full time hours in a specialist health and safety team

An EHO / TO working half full time hours in a specialist food safety team, who spends half their time working on health and safety [50% full time and then 50% on health and safety]

An EHO / TO working half full time hours in a specialist food safety team, who covers for 3 months for a colleague on maternity leave from the health and safety section [50% full time 25% on health and safety (1/4 of 1 year)].

Inspectors(1) working part-time hours (include those who spend either all or some of their time enforcing (or managing) health and safety).
Number of inspectors / Percent of full-time hours / Percent of time spent on health & safety
1
(Part-time EHO/TO)
1
(Part-time EHO/TO)
1
(Part-time EHO/TO) / 50%
(1/2 full-time hours)
50%
(1/2 full-time hours)
50%
(1/2 full-time hours) / 100%
(all time on h&s)
50%
(50% of time on h&s)
25%
(3 months h&s cover)

(1) inspectors include all Environmental Health Officers and Technical Officers who are appointed under s19 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act and who are authorised to exercise at least some of the powers under: ss 20,21,22 and 25 of HSWA, any health and safety regulation or any other relevant statutory provision.

2a. Staff resources devoted to health and safety enforcement work- as on 31 March 2010

Number of inspectors / Percent of time spent on health & safety
Inspectors(1) working full-time hours
(include those who spend either all or some of their time enforcing (or managing) health and safety and contractors or agency staff with HSWA powers. / 1 / 10
1 / 30
1 / 5
7 / 15
Number of inspectors / Percent of full-time hours / Percent of time spent on health & safety
Inspectors(1) working part-time hours
(include those who spend either all or some of their time enforcing (or managing) health and safety and contractors or agency staff with HSWA powers. / 1 / 60 / 15
1 / 60 / 15
Other staff resources devoted to health and safety work
(staff with no HSWA powers e.g. management, admin support, agency staff, consultants, training providers). / Number of staff / Percent of full-time hours / Percent of time spent on health & safety
2 / 100 / 20
2 / 50 / 20

(1) inspectors include all Environmental Health Officers and Technical Officers, plus any contractors or agency staff, who are appointed under s19 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act and who are authorised to exercise at least some of the powers under: ss 20,21,22 and 25 of HSWA, any health and safety regulation or any other relevant statutory provision.

2b) In 2009/10, did you have any vacancies (in excess of 3 months) that were not covered by other means e.g. agency staff, contractors?

Yes No

2c) If yes, how many full-time equivalent posts were vacant during 2009/10?

Part B:Enforcement action

3. Number of enforcement actions in 2009/10

(Please noteformalnotices issued at HSE enforced premises under the flexible warrant scheme should not be included in this table)

Type of premises / (a)
Informal notices / (b)
Improvement
notices / (c)
Deferred prohibition notices / (d)
Immediate prohibition notices / (e)
Simple cautions / cases reported to the Procurator Fiscal (1)
1. Retail shops / 1
2. Wholesale shops, warehouses and fuel storage depots / 4
3. Offices / 1
4. Catering, restaurants and bars / 11
5. Hotels, camp sites and other short-stay accommodation
6. Residential care homes
7. Leisure and cultural services / 1
8. Consumer services / 4
9. Other premises (not classified above) / 1
TOTALS / 21 / 2

(1) Number of simple cautions in England & Wales OR number of cases reported to the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland.

Part C:Further detail on local authority activity and resource

4. LA activity

Please provide as much information as possible about your LA's activities during the last year - attaching additional sheets as necessary. This information informs HELA/ LAU of the work that your LA is involved in.

4a) Please give detailsof yourhealth and safety projects, initiatives and activities during 2009/10, linked to national or local priorities. For example: details of partnership working, engaging stakeholders e.g. Safety and Health Awareness Days – SHADs, topic inspection etc. Please include project title, audience and outcome.Ifyouwish toinclude figures inyournarrative, in particular for activities linked to national and local priorities,for numbers of inspectionsandtime spent, these would be welcome but not compulsory.

We have participated in 3 regional initiatives this year:
1. Electrical Safety in catering premises
2. Hand Car washes
3. Large retail premises - Wilkinson

4b) Are there any particular enforcement issues where you have identified a need for better or further guidance?

No

4c)Where figures in questions 1 to 3 differ substantially from those provided in your previous return, we may contact you for verification. If there are any details relating to the figures you would like to bring to our attention, please use the box provided below.

The number of routine inspections due has fallen as we have focussed on project work.
We continue to do work validating our database and anticipate that this will will result in more inspections of unrated businesses.

Please give details of the person responsible for the completion of this form and to whom any query should be addressed

Name Richard Brown

Job Title Environmental Health Manager (Commercial)

Telephone number 01923 278440

Email

Date 26th May 2010

Thank you for completing this form. Please return it by 28May 2010.