Faculty Committees
Requirements
- Each faculty must convene a Faculty Health and Safety Committee three times a year.
- The committee’s main purpose is to enable consultation between management and trade union representatives on health and safety issues.
- It also advises the Dean on health and safety issues, enables monitoring of health and safety systems and supports the Dean to deal with problems escalated from school committees.
Model Terms of Reference
- To review faculty health and safety systems, monitoring practices and accident figures and trends, and ensure a uniform approach to health and safety.
- To consider reports, correspondence or relevant issues from trade union safety representatives, members of staff, outside agencies and enforcing authorities.
- Relevant feedback from previous University Health and Safety Committees should be presented to ensure effective sharing of information.
Organisation
- Each faculty health and safety committee should meet prior to the University Health and Safety Committee, so it can send salient items up to that agenda.
- Committees should review health and safety systems relevant across the faculty and not become reporting centres for operational issues that should be dealt with by local managers.
- The faculty must publish meeting dates at least one term in advance, where staff can see them.
- Meetings should not be cancelled or postponed except in exceptional circumstances, when the rearranged date should be announced as soon as possible.
- An agenda and draft previous minutes should be sent to all invited members 7 days prior to the committee.
- Co-opted advisers should attend only that section of the meeting to which they are contributing directly.
- Responsibility for meeting arrangements and facilitation, as well as taking, recording & distributing minutes lies with administrative support to the Dean.
- Minutes should be circulated to all invited members of the Committee and made available for all staff to view as soon as possible after the meeting.
Model membership
- Faculty Health and Safety Committees must invite an equal membership of managers and trade union safety representatives.
- The Dean must chair Faculty Health & Safety Committees.
- The Dean should appoint management representatives with sufficient relevant authority.
- The Health and Safety Manager (or nominated representative) must be invited to attend.
- Each recognised trade union must be invited to nominate safety representatives to attend.
- Co-opted advisers could include Service Managers from the cross-cutting services (e.g. Estates, RCS, HR and ISS), Fire Safety Managers, Health and Safety Co-ordinators, Occupational Health Managers, student representatives and other specialist advisers who attend to report on campus-wide initiatives and issues.