Who Chairs the H&S committee?

The highest ranking member of management you can pressgang.

The H&S bod ought (IMHO) be there for expert advice only.

Our Chief Exec chairs ours

The reason I am asking is that I have just been asked to start the H&S committee by a senior manager, and he pointed out that he expects me to chair it, he has told me who will be on it and there will be no union representation, or employee reps the only people on it will be Senior managers.

I have told him to check the regulations and sent HSE guidence and his response was 'I think we will do it my way'

Well he can do what he wants, he's the boss.
Get the fact you have advised him about breach of the RoES regs in writing however.

I think you need to clarify the purpose of the meeting. A management meeting on health and safety is different to a Health and Safety Committee meeting in accordance with the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations.

If it is the former then the agenda and format can be what the boss wants.

If it is the latter then it must set up in accordance with the regs assuming that the organisation recognises unions. If it does not recognise unions then you are into the realm of the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations.

Where the committee is established and involves employee representation, there has to be representation from the management with the authority to agree and implement change otherwise it is just a talking shop. My experience has been that it is the most senior manager who chairs the meeting at whatever level (department, site, country, global). I have seen committees where the vice chair is an employee representative and where the chair alternates between the manager and the employee representative. The outcomes and modus operandi of the committees was not noticeably different and they were able to initiate change however, they were set up. The role of the Safety Professional in all cases was an ex officio member, there to provide advice.

Hope this is useful.