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James Wright  
#1 Posted : 22 January 2024 18:47:57(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
James Wright

Hi all, just benchmarking H&S team sizes within local authorities so would like to hear from those who work in these organisations. As an example I work for a London LA of approx 5000 staff (inc school staff). I'm in a team of four. The manager, two advisors and a business apprentice to help with admin. We only deal with employee work activities (a different team deals with local business inspections/enforcement etc) and the two advisors spend about 40% of their time delivering first aid training.

A very lean team! If you're able to provide a similar summary that would be great.

Many thanks in advance.

KMatt  
#2 Posted : 23 January 2024 09:54:09(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
KMatt

I worked as an advisor for a LA in the southwest for a couple of years.  We had a Manager, Senior advisor, 5 advisors, 1 admin who was also a DSE assessor and we had a team of OCC Health of about 3.  We did cover schools but started losing contracts as they were becoming academies and would manage the H&S via other means.  We also covered highways, social workers, surveyors, libaries, museums, buildings etc.

Part of our role was to deliver manual handling, fire awareness and general safety training.  Audits with schools we had contracts with would be 1 every 2 years, and the same with internal audits.

We were very hands-off though which was frustrating & why I left

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James Wright on 25/01/2024(UTC)
Yossarian  
#3 Posted : 23 January 2024 11:33:56(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Yossarian

1 Manager, 5 Advisors and 1 admin/ support staff member for a LA with 5000+ employees.

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James Wright on 25/01/2024(UTC)
peter gotch  
#4 Posted : 23 January 2024 13:36:22(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
peter gotch

Hi James

What you are saying to me is that you have one boss, 1.2 (NOT 2) advisors and an apprentice.

As you have 0.8 full time equivalent advisors doing first aid training.

First Aid training can be procured from e.g. a charity for probably a fraction of the cost of delivery by in house H&S advisors IFF you consider the opportunity cost of what those 0.8 FTE people could otherwise do.

So, if you outsourced that, you would have much more resource to allocate to the much more difficult challenges that probably offer greater job satisfaction.

DH1962  
#5 Posted : 23 January 2024 15:08:22(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
DH1962

At District level where I used to work it was never more than one in my region of the UK.  For smaller districts that may not even be full time. Of course they don’t have education, social care or roads like County Councils do. There may be a second if it’s a council that has retained a substantial housing stock.I know some have explored 'shared service' options since I left that sector.

What I and my opposite numbers also found when we got together was that none of us sat in the same place/service area within our organisation as  any of the others.

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James Wright on 25/01/2024(UTC)
Connor35037  
#6 Posted : 23 January 2024 16:53:11(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Connor35037

LA with 15K employees

1 x Manager, 1 x Advisor, 7 x F/T Officers, 2 x P/T Officers 1 x P/T Admin.

Separate training team

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James Wright on 25/01/2024(UTC)
James Wright  
#7 Posted : 25 January 2024 11:44:15(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
James Wright

Hi Peter

Thank you for the response. You are correct re 1.2 advisors. The cost of outsourcing our training programme is about the same as 1 FTE advisor post with on costs. One of the outsourcing downsides is that when a course is cancelled and depending how much notice is given I may save some costs, however I don't get back any advisory time. Our senior leadership are starting to recognise how lean the team is and the value we can add in reducing costs through accident prevention so hopefully some of the information others have posted will enable more resources to the team in whatever shape it comes in.

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peter gotch on 25/01/2024(UTC)
HSSnail  
#8 Posted : 29 January 2024 13:34:09(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
HSSnail

Have in the past worked with a number of LA teams of various sizes - without knowing the exact duties undertaken its an impossible question to answer. As an example i knew 2 authorities of roughly the same size covering roughly the same jobs, but in one the managers of teams were expected to carry out accident investigations after training from the H&S team, in the second the H&S team did all the investigations - wont surprise you the second H&S team was much larger.

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James Wright on 01/02/2024(UTC)
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