Posted By clare coles Hi I wonder if anyone out there can help me. I have just formed a H&S Committee at my workplace, and our first meeting is on Wednesday. I am not exactly sure what should be and what shouldn't be included on the agenda in these meetings. I dont want the meetings just for staff to have a general moan, but I would like them to be concise and informative. Any ideas? Thanks and regards Clare

Posted By Jimmy R Hi, You could include the following as a start: FA issues, Fire Safety Issues, General H&S Issues, H&S Rep Reports, Accident Reports, Changes in Legislation, DSE Issues, H&S training, Union Issues. I hope this helps.

Posted By Shane J Hi claire, What is your area of work? It will be important to set down few rules at your first meeting. As with all types of meetings. As you probably have already received info on what type of things you need to discuss I will just say, at the end of your meeting make sure that responsibilities for taking certain actions are clearly defined. Don't end up having to chase up everything yourself.

Posted By Paul Duell I'd make the number one rule: "No surprises". In other words - if someone raises a safety hazard they've spotted - "When did you report it? Who to? What's happened since?". I found that if you're not pretty strict about this, people bring long lists of hazards and safety moans to the meeting that they should've reported through the formal reporting system weeks before. Of course if someone's got a genuine moan that they've raised the same hazard loads of times and nothing's been done, that's different, but nothing should be raised for the first time at an H&S meeting

Posted By Christopher Clare The content of your agenda will depend very much on your type of business. Clearly the content will reflect the members and the disciplines of your organisation. Health and Safety Committees are absolutely useless unless you have the right members with the right levels of empowerment on board. They can be seen as just a tick list in the great big governance picture. You need to establish with others what the Terms of Reference of the committee will be. Who will it answer to? What influence, decisions can it make? What sort of mixture of members do you have? It may have to be dynamic in its approach until it is established. It's fine having lots of clerks, (no disrespect to clerks) but if you don't have someone high enough up the organisation with overall responsibility for the committee - then you will find that it is ineffective. How does what takes place in the committee feed up into the Board? If you have unions then invite them on board. They can prove to be your greatest asset. All the best, great initiative.