Posted By Frank Hallett Tracey, you should really be looking for a competent consultancy service to assist your employer to produce the best structure for your undertaking. However, you could start off by getting a copy of HSG65 - Successful Health & Safety Management and going through that. If you still need help after that, just click on my name and I shall offer any further suggestions that I can outside of a consultancy situation. Frank Hallett

Posted By Stuart Nagle Tracey. In my experience of large organisations like your own, health and safety teams normally stand outside the normal core business chain of command with reporting responsibilities to a senior health and safety senior manager who has full access to and reports directly to board level, with all members of the health and safety team given a high level of authority to ensure that the businesses health and safety policy and procedures are fully complied with. This is particularly true where many areas of work the company performs are of a high risk nature. My own experience in this field was with the MoD both in the UK and overseas. The MoD, although officially exempt from many areas, have a policy of compliance with UK health and safety policy and procedures (unless an overseas country's standards are higher) and have created the policies, infrastructure and procedures, backed up by rigourous auditing procedures to implement and maintain the necessary standards. In addition, they operate a 'duel' system where civilians perform safety functions under normal peace-time conditions by having military counterparts, who's task would be to step into the breach in the case of hostilities breaking out. Their aim being to keep their military personnel safe from their own internal functions so they only have to worry about the enemy! Integrating H&S functions and reporting lines into local departments in large organisations has often proved troublesome for a variety of reasons, not least the problems of responsiblity of their managers (usually devorced from a H&S function) who's main priority is the core busines activity, profit and loss etc, and not safety, and who may not understand the role health and safety has to play in the business and occassionally such persons wish to 'keep a clean slate' by perhaps wanting to ignore or sweep things under a local carpet to avoid 'problems'... For health and safety to succeed in such an large organisation there is, in my opinion, a need to seperate policing of the business policy and procedures from the core business activity of managers and for responsibility and 'enforcement' (if thats the way it could termed) to be a stand alone function with direct reporting to very senior and responsible management who fully support the health and safety function within the business overall. Stuart