What are people's views on whether an organisation should have a designated Director Responsible for Health and Safety?

I have tended to try and resist this, on the basis that if we have one director labelled as 'responsible for health and safety', that might encourage the others to think they are 'off the hook', so to speak. I would prefer that it is at the front of every director's mind that they personally are responsible for health and safety - ie (in legal terms) that they share something equivalent to a joint-and-several liability.

The IOD/HSE INDG417 document has both statements that contradict this view (eg "The presence on the board of a health and safety director can be a strong signal that the issue is being taken seriously") and some that support it (eg good practice case study on British Sugar - "the chief executive assigning health and safety responsibilities to all directors").

The issue I am facing immediately is a revision of our QA procedures, in which the author of the discussion draft is proposing that we do have a single designated 'Director Responsible for Health and Safety'. It certainly makes it easier to write a procedure that talks about clearly defined roles and responsibilities, but I'm not convinced that it's an improvement to the safety performance of the company.

Which approach is best, in people's opinion?

There should 100% be a director accountable for safety, not to let others off the hook, but to be the person to act as the conduit between the exec/board, and the functional lead(s) in the business. Assigning responsibilities across directors is also possible by making them report as part of board/exec meetings, or giving them annual objectives around safety.

An executive committee will always have an FD, or director accountable for finance, and most if not all directors will have some finance based responsibilities that they report on or finance targets to achieve.

All of the organisations I have worked for have had a H&S Director or one director responsible for h&s, except my current organisation. I think it is important to have one person who can focus on the subject, but I also agree other directors should be aware of h&s initiatives, hence h&s should be on the agenda of every Board meeting.

I believe by not having one director solely responsible for h&s matters can be diluted. Fudging responsibility and accountability could be a real problem. The other issue with spreading responsibility is the knowledge of h&s matters of individual directors. Sure they may have attended a Directing Safely course or similar, but that in itself does not make them an expert in h&s.

A construction company I do some work for have a director responsible for health and safety.

He requests my work and I carry it out, he counter signs every method statement and represents the company as far as safety is concerned at every meeting. I attend some meetings.

The MD signs the safety policy statement.

The safety policy contains a responsibility chart showing all responsibilities, including myself as safety consultant.

This keeps getting stated (at least, this is the second time it has been explicitly sated, but it seems to underlie some of the other comments).

So I say again - NO, HR does not have a specific director, NO finance does not have a specific director, NO operations does not have a specific director, and so on. The repeated assertions that all organisations have a finance director or all organisation have a marketing director or whatever are not true. The organisation I am discussing does not divide responsibilities in that way - in general, directors are responsible for all aspects of the operations undertaken by a particular section of the business, not responsible for a particular aspect of the operations undertaken by all sections the business.



This comment seems to assume that all organisations have infinite capability to recruit new directors to fulfil every possible role. Are you suggesting that every company should have a specific expert health director, and every company should have a specific expert safety director, and every company should have a specific expert environment director, and every company should have a specific expert quality director? So every company must have at least four directors (plus presumably the one that worries about actually doing whatever it is the company actually does)?

It's not the company I'm discussing, but are you advocating that the company I own, which has two directors (me and Mrs me) and no employees should immediately employ four directors to fulfil these functions?

If it doesn't apply to that company, why does the requirement to have these four function-specific experts apply to the company I am considering? If it's not four function-specific experts, but only one, then actually they aren't a function-specific expert, are they, and why can that director cover these things alongside other things but the others can't cover (eg) health and safety alongside their other things?

I report into a senior manager who then attends the director meeting, the director attends the board meeting at the board meeting there is a H&S expert (haha) sorry I know him. I submit a report to my senior manager, who also has other areas that he managers, quality, HR, Marketing some aspects of the business i.e. bringing in work to be completed by inmates. There are other senior managers who carryout other aspects of the company but they all also have multi roles.

achrn....yes you did articulate it badly you did not say it was your company - and you had you and mrs you.....its not an typical structured large organisation.....are you even an SME. You said you wanted HSE at the forefront of every directors mind and then you say there is only two of you yet you pick out research from British Sugar. If you want salient comment ask a question that is properly contextualised and you may get a cogent answer.

I would suggest that yourself as CEO or your wife as CEO2 go on a health and safety course as you are both "the controlling mind" as you have no other directors and name yourselves as responsible because you are anyway. You can hire in help via a consultant but that does not absolve you of your legal obligations or liability as an employer.

Next time you want a response from a forum like this I would suggest you put all the facts up first rather than critically dissecting what people have written.

Please read what I wrote before going off on one:

"It's not the company I'm discussing, but are you advocating that the company I own, which has two directors (me and Mrs me) and no employees should immediately employ four directors to fulfil these functions?"

I am NOT discussing the company I own. The company I am discussing is NOT a two-person company, it's a multi-site company with turnover measured in millions. The company I own is a different company.

The company I own was offered as an example to demonstrate that the assertion that all companies always have a Finance director and other functional-specific directors is plainly not the whole story. Many companies do not.

Next time you want to lambaste someone on a forum like this I would suggest you read all the facts put up.

ACHRN

In your original question you wrote "our" QA procedures which implies they are your when you pipe up about you and mrs you...to be fair your boring me now

This is what I like with our model - a director running a business group knows (s)he's not simply responsible for getting the product out the door, they're responsible for the safety of the people who have to get the product out the door, and not only is the director responsible for safety, there's no-one else 'more' responsible for it.

I know that even with a designated safety director all the others will retain a corporate responsibility, but I think it is likely to foster a different attitude if someone else is over-archingly responsible. Having said which (and as previously noted) I now recognise that this seems to be very much a minority approach.