I work for a medium sized organisation (1200 employees) which is spread across Scotland. As legally required we have a corporate health and safety policy. Within the organisation there are two Directorates who have a number of specific inherent hazards, account for the largest numbers of employees and have unique management structures. My consideration/question is, should these Directorates have their own specific health and safety policies which take account of their high risk activities, their management structure and fit with the corporate policy I would appreciate any comments giving reasons for either supporting Directorate policies or the status quo (Brian)

Sorry, the subject is Health and Safety Policies

Assuming these "Directorates" are not totally autonomous I can't see the sense in having different H&S Policies. The responsibilities for h&s should be clear in your overall management systems and the hazardous activities should be accounted for in your risk assessments and safe systems of work.

Similarly to the OP, we have a medium sized workforce (2,500 ish) and also two distinct operational divisions doing very different work, with completely different management structures. We have a single OH&S policy and a single set of policies/procedures etc supporting it. What differs is risk assessment, and activity-specific guidance (if needed) but that's only because they're for activities unique to one part of the business. We might have a cleaner using a ladder in one division and a construction worker in another. The risk assessments will be different, but the procedure by which their managers selected, purchased, maintained and inspected their ladders are identical.