Health & Safety - what is due diligence?

As businesses owners, managing directors, and senior managers, due diligence is a phrase commonly heard used to describe a comprehensive process or analysis undertaken to act with a certain level of care. It is applied to many areas of business, but what does due diligence actually mean in health and safety?

(Note, charities and other some other not for profit organisations are treated the same as businesses)

What does the legislation say?

 If you are a company director or any other person in the business who has significant influence over the management of activities in a business (e.g. a general manager who is the decision maker on health and safety budgets or decisions called an officer under the legislation) then you must take reasonable steps to demonstrate due diligence by:

1.       Gathering up to date knowledge of health and safety matters in your business.

2.       Have an understanding of the hazards and risks present in your business.

3.       Ensuring your business has measures in place to reduce hazards and risks.

4.       Ensuring your business reports, investigates and responds to health and safety incidents.

5.       Ensuring that your business complies with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

6.       That you regularly check that these measures are in place and effective.

Why does the legislation require this?

 This is in recognition of the influence senior leaders of businesses have on the culture of a business and the expectation that senior leaders will show leadership and set the tone in making good health and safety practices just part of what you do within your business. The legislation wants you to do this proactively and be responsible for seeking out information on health and safety and checking that the things you expect to be in place are working well or improvements are made.

If a serious incident was to happen in a business and officers are not demonstrating due diligence, then there is a risk that individual officers be prosecuted (as well as a business).

How do you do this practically?

 1.       Request health and safety information regularly at existing meetings or briefings in your business. Make it clear you want to know and make your time available.

2.       Talk to the people in your business, this may involve spending some time on occasion ‘on the shop floor’. Keep abreast of how changes in your business may affect the health and safety of people involved in your business activities.

3.       Focus your managers and reports to prioritise the reduction of health and safety risks in all decision making. Ensure you have sound policies and procedures in place.

4.       Include yourself in the reporting of any health and safety incidents and make it clear you want kept abreast of improvements made after investigations, how these decisions involved and were communicated to workers, and how effective the improvements were in reducing risk.

5.       Ensure that you have professional health and safety advice available in your business.

6.       Review your policies and procedures regularly, consider the use of external audits and reviews to confirm your systems are working well/suggest improvements.

If you are concerned you may have some gaps in delivering due diligence in health and safety in your business, reach out to Rachel Webster & Associates or The Safety Act for an initial no obligation chat.