In a Facilities Management organisation, an Estates department has many policies and procedures. My question for discussion & ultimately help is this: What needs to be a policy and what needs to be a procedure, e.g. do we need an electrical safety policy and an electrical procedure. Where I am going with this is we have multiple topics as per above, such as electrical, confined spaces, working at heights, COSHH, etc etc, and we seem to have a policy for every one, and then to follow on from that, we have procedures for most of these topics as well. The procedures are the ones which have the detail in them with what each person has a duty to do, how they do it, and what rules/regs they follow to achieve electrical safety, COSHH control etc etc. My hopes is that we can scrap all the policies and have one main Estates services/H&S policy which references the role of the department and makes reference to all the legislation & procedures which sit within the main services policy, but I am getting mixed results from all levels of management staff, some say we need a policy for certain topics specifically (electrical safety being one of them) and some say we dont, a procedure would be fine? Any help with this would me much appreciated. Cheers

I would say a mixture is the norm, but I would not particularly have both as you are suggesting you currently. Mostly HR topics are policy ie New and expectant mothers policy, though there may also be a procedure to follow. Other H&S stuff would have an overriding policy which refers to company procedure and then the procedures themselves. Seems pointless duplicating information. Never had any issues even from external auditors with this approach, as long as everything is covered. IMHO Chris

In addition to good advice already given: There is little clarity or agreement on how policy v procedure for H&S works, and it does also depend on the organisation, and what works for one may not for another. I was confused for a long time (and some might say still am) but did do quite a bit of research and experimentation around it. Anything which has clear standards laid down (eg regulation) is covered by your general H&S policy statement of "we will comply". So that is, by default, your policy for everything. No need to have a separate policy for MH, electrical, PPE etc etc.). However, specific application may need local procedures - all electricians doing 'X' to have certain qualifications, use of Permits etc. Where a separate policy may be useful is where there is no specific standard, so the organisation needs to set it's own - driving, for example, or site visits to manage lone worker risk. It's not compulsory though - a procedure would often work fine, but people may call a procedure 'our policy', as it is "the way we manage 'X' here". Policy should only be determined / set by the top tier of management. It should avoid setting an unrealistic standard (to look good) as it is setting the level of 'reasonable practicability' for the organisation, and could be used as the bar against which you would be measured in legal action. Policy may be drafted on behalf of the organisation by safety bods, but signed off by execs. Procedures are less formal and should be devised in principle, and endorsed, by relevant operational management. Often they may be actually produced (!) by safety bods especially where they apply generally to everyone and so no other manager takes ownership.

Some good advice given already, here is yet another approach to documentation hierarchy and some definitions.

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Policy

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Broad definition of Company expectations and requirements. Authorised by top management e.g. HSSE policy, Corruption policy, etc.

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Code of Practice

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High level document specifying the overall approach for performing a business process/activity Particularly useful where you have a process that spans multiple disciplines/departments to tie them all together.

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Procedure

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Document specifying the way a work process is to be performed describing the purpose, scope, responsibilities, when, how and other specifications

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Work Instruction

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Low level document. Press button A, turn valve B.

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Forms, Records

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Outputs of procedures, work instructions

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Guidelines

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Non-mandatory document providing supplementary info about acceptable methods for implementing requirements found in policies, business processes, procedures, work instructions.