RMG – Closure of Safety Audits Actions:

RMG – Closure of Safety Audits Actions:

As all ASRs and WSRs will be aware, health and safety audits and inspections are vital to the wellbeing of the workforce. Safety audits are the process through which companies, organisations and employers ensure they are legally compliant with current health & safety laws and regulations. While its purpose is to ensure compliance, it also assesses how well the company is following processes and overall safety and health performance.

The HSE states large public and private sector organisations should have formal procedures in place for auditing and reporting on health and safety performance. The HSE defines it as: “A collection of independent information on the efficiency, effectiveness and reliability of the total health & safety management system and drawing up plans for corrective action.” While its purpose is to ensure compliance, it also assesses how well the organisation is following processes and overall performance, assessing how well the risks are being controlled.

At a meeting yesterday with Royal Mail Group, Interim Global Safety Director Phil Graham, Mr. Graham informed the Health, Safety & Environment Department that as from next week, week commencing Monday 9 May, Royal Mail Group HQ, through the Chief Operating Officer Grant McPherson will be asking all their unit managers to focus on any safety audit actions the unit still has open or overdue and to prioritise ‘closing them out’. These are outstanding open audit actions from safety audits that took place throughout the 2021/22, last financial year. Royal Mail Group Chief Operating Officer Grant McPherson will be writing to all unit managers to emphasise the importance of prioritising the closing out of the safety actions from next Monday.

Grant McPherson has told managers in his communication (copy attached) that there is much Royal Mail needs to do to improve safety performance and it’s important that Royal Mail implements the standards that are there to control risks and keep people safe at work. He added that last year 1,120 safety audits were undertaken but he is shocked at the number of outstanding actions there still are.

It has been agreed with the Safety Director that all CWU ASRs and WSRs should be fully engaged, involved and consulted by the SHE Team Safety Advisors and the Unit Managers in this initiative which will concentrate primarily on the ‘high impact units’ with the higher risk actions requiring attention and higher number of important actions.

Would all ASRs please prioritise this important issue and engage with their counterpart SHE Team Safety Advisors and ‘high impact unit’ operational managers in their postcode constituency areas to discuss and monitor the closure of any open safety audit actions, ensuring priority higher risk issues are appropriately treated with the importance they deserve. Your support in this key task would be appreciated and feedback in due course welcomed.

Please find attached file containing a list of all units, across all functions, listing the outstating and overdue ‘Safety Audit Actions’ requiring attention and closure.

Note: The list contains; Delivery Offices, Mail Centres, Distribution Centres, Fleet Workshops, Contact Centres, Parcelforce Depots, RMSS Depots, etc.

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