True "minute taking" is unfortunately becoming a lost art.

Most meetings eventually descend to a list of action point, owner and time frame with the main agenda being the carry forward from the meeting before. This follows the principles of SMART which is more than enough to satisfy the HSE along with independent external management systems auditors.

The bigger issue is making those assigned tasks think about what they can actually achieve and by when rather than having the same item appearing repeatedly with the delivery date being pushed forever backward. In this scenario "minute taking" would merely record the excuse for kicking the item down the road before moving on which looks bad to any external party.

I once worked for an American company in Merseyside who had lost a whole car manufacturing factory to fire during the 1950s.  Following that their safety culture was ramped up a few good notches.

I was responsible for fire and safety and led the H&S committee meetings, two of them every month as the premises was split in two by a 2 hour Fire Wall  I took the minutes and the meetings were run by a very high ranking member of management.  I typed out the minutes and distributed them in the few days after the meetings and the Plant Manager also received a copy which he discussed during the monthly Management Committee meeting attended by the Plant Union Convenor.

The minutes were as detailed as I could reasonably be expected to write, taking notes during the meetings.

As the four weeks between meetings went on and no action was being taken until week four when everyone ran around putting things right, the Plant Manager wanted to know progress as did the two who ran the meetings.

The minutes were distributed a second time just before the meetings and woe betide anyone responsible for taking action who neglected his required tasks.

Attendees at the meetings were all union reps who were well supported (egged on) by their Convenor.

Those minutes I believe were instrumental in actions being taken and the meeting seemed to always run well.

When I change employer I took the procedure with me and the union reps were all amazed at how much more efficiant the H&S meeting were because agreed actions were usually taken.

do you "recognise" the trade union? Are they involved in negotiations etc? If so then the legal requirement to have a H&S comittee is when 2 trade union reps requset it. As such i dont see why you would exclude them. I work for a largeish employer and we recognise two trade unions, although membership is not as high as it used to be. As such they are represented on all our communication systems.

I would be lost without someone keeping minutes for me on actions we agree - but thats just me.

For the last 15+ years, having worked with / for several companies - I've been able to survive with meetings that only capture items in an action log. (this includes who raised an issue / date of raising the issue / the assigned owner / agreed action closure date / actual closure date / status comments / feedback required/provided to person who raised the issue/concern

I don't personally think that the HSE would base their conclusions on an action log / full set of minutes

The important items for me is raising and resolving an issue - or providing feedback whey an issue cannot be resolved 

We don't have a union, and I still take notes/minutes. Looking at it from a purely finacial position, any paper trail highlighting improvements made could have a beneficial effect on any actions (fines or civil claims). I don't really see any compelling reason not to take notes or minutes.

I've just had our safety meeting, and I'm just about to write the minutes.

I think minutes are important,  and should include more than just the list of actions.  However, I don't (personally) record a detailed Mr X said this, Mrs Y said that, Mx Z said the other.  More typically I would minute a discussiuon as 'the meeting discussed, and the following key points were raised: X Y Z'.  I record the consensus view with some indication of how united a consensus it was - I hope this encourages collective behaviour.

I agree with most of the other comments made.  In particular, minutes need to come out fast.  I regard minutes later than end of the following day as a failure.

Regarding actions that stay open meeting after meeting after meeting, one of our KPIs is how long actions have been on the agenda being carried forward. Any action that stays there too long gets raised at the board meeting - most people try and avoid being raised as a problem at the board meeting.  The KPI we use is number of open H&S meeting actions, how many of those were new last meeting, and age being how many times the item has re-appeared (if something raised first in the most recent meeting it is age zero, if it was raised in the meeting before last, and last meeting it wasn't reported closed, it's now aged 1, etc).  I started using that KPI about four years ago and it has helped.

e.g. '18 open actions, of which 12 were new last meeting, average age of open actions is 0.94'.  I'm normally happy with an average age under 1, but in this case it is actually 17 actions under control (brand new or only been carried over once) but one outstanding for two years and repeatedly discussed at board level.