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Posted By Karen Newman
I work for a large Local Authority which has recently taken the decision to centralise its H&S team (of about 6 H&S Professionals plus support) under one H&S manager within Human Resources.
Previously most of the H&S Advisers were employed within individual Departments Education, Social Services etc. However we no longer have departments but 20 Service areas. Hence the decision to centralise.
Does anyone in Local Govt or similar have recent experience restructuring or any examples of centralised structures and whether or not they are working which that they could let us have. Details such as grade levels and staff roles would be great.
Many thanks.
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Posted By Keith Jackson
6 1/2 years ago I relocated due to reorganisation. My old authority lowered the grade of Safety Officer to Scale 6 from S01. Consequently I took another post with a different authority and retained my grade. The autority I work for has 6,000 employees. The Safety Unit is within the Personnel Department. There were 2 Safety Adviser 1 professionally qualified (MIOSH) on S01 1 without formal safety qualifications on scale 6. There is 1 Senior Safety Adviser on S02. Recently I have been seconded to work on a project for the Occupational Health Unit. It only since 6 months ago that we have had an Occupational Health Adviser who is on a PO grade. My old authority has had all sorts of problems since I left because of redundancies and down grades.
Please feel free to discuss further if you want.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
Hi Karen.
Having been around for some time, I have observed local authorities swinging between centralisation and decentralisation and back again in an almost continuous process of reorganisation. If you stay there for a few more years some bright spark will probably arrive on the scene and come up with a proposal to decentralise you again.
From the H&S point of view, I beleive there are advantages in both positions and consequently tried to maintain a sort of hybrid state for our H&S team whereby they were organisationally together sharing experiences, resources, information, equipment, etc, etc but individually allocated to serve particular departments (with appointed deputies) so that closer working relationships could develop, experience and specialisation would be enhanced, etc, etc.
Let me know how things progress.
Ken
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Posted By Allan St.John Holt
The hybrid state is exactly where we're going at Royal Mail. H&S professionals line-managed by their peers, but outward-facing to their units. So H&S has a solid line not a dotted one on the org charts, and the H&S team members have now got dotted lines to their Heads of Business. This makes us advisers, not managers.
It's a matter of opinion of course, but it didn't work the other way around, as H&S people were effectively hired by their Business Units and tempered their advice and comments accordingly. And sometimes they got a lot of non-safety stuff to do which they couldn't avoid.
I have some job descriptions that may help, and will discuss any time.
Allan
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Posted By Ken Taylor
Another problem is not being 'hired' by the 'business unit' as they want to spend their money on other things - whereas the H&S adviser who is seen as being involved with them and has a 'desk in their office' is far more likely to be involved and utilised.
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