Fairfield City Council has a robust Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) that prides itself on a unique and fluid consultation framework.
“Staff safety and wellbeing is Council’s top consideration and our motivation is to be an organisation where we effectively work together to ensure the safety and well being of all people who work for, and visit Council,” said Fairfield City Council’s General Manager Alan Young.
Council’s Corporate OH&S Strategic Plan 2008–2011 sets the direction and priorities to ensure that its OH&S resources are focused and coordinated.
The strategy takes into account research into Council’s external environment and extensive consultation across all departments. The overall goals of the OHSMS is to decrease injury in the workplace, increase capability to manage OH&S, increase available OH&S information and to increase hazard identification.
To measure the Corporate OH&S Strategic Plan’s success, Council closely monitors workers compensation statistics, hazard reporting and corrective actions across all sites. In addition, it also has a continual improvement program which monitors system implementation.
A key feature of Council’s OHSMS is the formation of a formal subcommittee of the Executive Management Team, called the Safety Leadership Team (SLT). The strategy is managed and overseen by the SLT which takes a collaborative strategic approach to OH&S within the workplace, a decisive move away from compliance based activity.
Council also has an OH&S Committee in place which provides a forum for management and employees to meet on a regular basis and discuss OH&S issues. This committee reports to the Safety Leadership Team.
Safety Advocates are another initiative Council has introduced. They serve as an active and additional resource to support and assist front line managers in the implementation of the OH&S Management System. This is not delegating the responsibility of OH&S away from line management, rather a direct support.
“Both the Safety Leadership Team and the Safety Advocates play a pivotal role in the success of Council’s system,” Alan Young said.
Fairfield City Council has won a National Safety Council of Australia Award for its Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management System. This award recognises Council for integrating excellent OH&S practices into its operations.
For more information about Council’s OH&S plan call Cosette Helou, OHS&W Officer, on (02) 9725 0206.
