Posted By srd
I am a health and safety officer for a company, and have been asked by my manager to "look after" the health and safety of a smaller company within the same Group as us.

This other sister company has dedicated office space within our buildings, and shares some common areas such as staff restaurant and toilets.

Some of our staff enter their dedicated areas to repair equipment, clean etc. Some of their staff enter our areas to access vending machines and to use some of our equipment.

This sister company also provides a service to us, so there is a fair amount of integration between the two companies, with relatively free movement of staff.

What are the implications of me as a health and safety officer of one company "looking after" the health and safety of another, albeit a sister, company?

If someone dies at the sister company as a result of my negligence, would my manager at my company be implicated?

I think that the proposed "looking after" arrangement isn't good enough, and we need to formalise this somehow, but what are the options? The ones that I can think of are:

1 - make me up to Group H&S officer.

2 - work for the sister company as a self-employed paid consultant in addition to my present job (but then presumably I would need to get PI insurance?)

3 - continue working for my company while giving advice to the sister company, but formalising the agreement in writing (but could this legally be done in such a way as to protect my boss if I am negligent towards the sister company?). Is there anyway I could benefit financially from this arrangement?

4 - tell the sister company to make their own arrangements regarding H&S, with me just co-operating with their appointed person.

From a personal point of view I would prefer an option that would result in me receiving more money, which to me is only fair as I will be doing more work and taking on extra responsibilities.

Any advice please?

Steve.

Posted By srd
So would it be OK to 'support' the other two companies without working directly for them or without working for them on a consultancy basis?

Steve.

Posted By D H
Hi - I would have thought that if a company had a few sites (or sister companies) that a robust Safety Management System that was established at HQ would be rolled out to the other plants.
Does not seem practical to have different safety procedures and standards across the business especially if there is interaction among the services and workforce.
If this is the case, then it should be easy enough to implement.


Dave

Posted By srd
Liability was at the back of my mind, not just for me but for my current manager.

I thought that if I was employed on a consultant basis by the other two sister companies, then effectively I would be working for them, and in the event of a tragedy at one of the two sister companies then my current manager would not be liable.

As was said previously my current manager may be liable if he didn't allow me enough time to do the H&S work required at the two sister companies, so any arrangement where I don't work directly for the two sister companies could implicate him.

Steve.