Hi Laura
To be honest I don't think there is any particular reason for the agenda for an H&S meeting with executives to be fundamentally different to the agenda that would be appropriate for a factory or hospital of similar size.
So, in whatever scenario you could consider two key questions:
1. What the execs want to know
2. What you think that the execs should hear about even when they DON'T want to know!
.....and I suggest that in either case this should be driven by the key risks associated with running the organisation.
AK mentions KPIs and all too often what the Board wants to mostly know is information on reactive indicators such as numbers of Lost Time Injuries and/or Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR).
However, if the same Board was looking at production they might look at the success rate more closely than the failure rate though often these are two sides of the same coin. 95% of students getting their qualification is the same as 5% of students failing to pass - though, of course, it probably is worth investigating why 5% are not getting past a key hurdle, if that gives pointers to what the organisation could do better - i.e. the Board doesn't simply put the failures down to the substandard actions of the students and looks into whether there are any substandard conditions for the students to work in.
Boards like a KPI that looks at LTIFR partly as it is one method in which they can attempt to benchmark with "similar" organisations, and perhaps in part as the chances are that if you look at a long enough period the LTIFR should usually be on a downward trajectory and everyone likes a pretty graph that appears to indicate that all is looking rosier.
Why "should" ? Because global statistics show that organisations have generally reduced LTIFRs through the decades since about the end of World War II. Probably mostly nothing to do with organisations getting better at managing H&S per se, but more about technological development and progress with improved Safety (and to a lesser extent Occupational Health) standards in effect coming as a free bonus.
The problem with LTIFR is that generally it reports on accidents to workers and ignores what happens to those other than the organisation's own workers UNLESS the organisation also monitors what happens to others, including e.g. those working for its supply chain and, those impacted by its activities, who are not at work, who in your case include the students.
We have reached the point that in many organisations the chance of someone being fatally or seriously injured OFF site is higher than the chance of an accident resulting in such harm ON site.
But do your Execs actually want to know that "Procurement" are awarding Contracts that involve things being transported to and from site without effective due diligence of the Contractors' means of managing the OFF site risks? - or will this only be of interest to them when Jenny Smith aged 6 is run over by a vehicle in a poor state of maintenance being used to carry materials to or from YOUR site and with the driver exceeding the speed limit in a built up area, and the investigative journalists start pointing the finger at the College? At which point it is less H&S risk, and more a risk to the organisation's reputation.
.....and do these Execs want to know about how many of your staff will be suffering occupational ill health in 5,10 or 20 years time?
This is where the old principle "what gets measured, gets managed" doesn't really work, as you can't easily keep statistics for harm that has yet to present.
Which means that you need to consider what precursors of that harm to "measure", if you are to "manage" the risks.
Exactly the same will apply to MOST of the environmental risks your organisation presents to the outside world.
Hence what proactive KPIs would help the Execs consider the key risks?
AK has mentioned training. I suggest you might also think about how to measure the H&S performance of your supply chain.
....and I am not sure that hanging your hat on 45001 or any other ISO standard is particularly helpful. It's easy to jump through the hoops of ISO accreditation, yet miss lots of the key risks!
Example, in line with one element of 45001 you commit to putting 95% of staff through training package Special K in the next year, and you hit that target.
Fine except that from a legal perspective and compliance with HSWA etc, it might be the 5% who didn't get trained who represent a much greater risk (from whatever perspective).
...and if training package Special K is not suitable for the needs of many of the 95% you might have a mix of some people who have received training that adds little, if any, value, and at the same time failing to adequately train some of the others who have had this package either as the training was not appropriate to the staff's needs or because they have failed to assimilate it.
At which point telling the Execs that "we have hit our target of delivering Special K training to 95% of staff in te last year" means that you are likely to influence a false sense of security.
Why not jot down:
A. Top 10 risks that you perceive in terms of those employed by the College.
B. Top 10 risks to students and other members of the public
C. Top 10 risks that your supply chain imports to the College, whether ON or OFF site
Then work out what to do to assess how well all these risks are being managed.
Then decide which e.g. 10 of the 30 need most attention and devise an action plan with SMART targets so that the Execs can monitor progress on an action plan?