Examination of Witnesses (Questions 470
- 480)
WEDNESDAY 7 JULY 2004
MS SANDRA
CALDWELL AND
MS ELIZABETH
GYNGELL
Q470 Mike Gapes: May I first of all
welcome our witnesses from the Health and Safety Executive, Sandra
Caldwell and Elizabeth Gyngell. As you are aware, we are carrying
out an inquiry into Duty of Care. This is our fifth evidence session
and the aim of the inquiry is to examine how the Armed Forces
look after their people at the very beginning of their service,
recruits in Phase 1 training establishments and trainees in Phase
2 training establishments. Ms Caldwell and Ms Gyngell, would you
like to introduce yourselves and say a few words?
Ms Caldwell: I shall kick off.
I am Sandra Caldwell. I am HSE's director for field operations
and basically to put that into context HSE has four operating
directorates: the nuclear inspectorate, the railway inspectorate
and what we call our hazardous industries inspectorate which deals
with onshore and offshore chemical works. Anything else for which
HSE has responsibility comes into my area: the public service,
construction, agriculture through to hospitals, schools, self-employed
builders. We cover the whole of that spectrum. I have with me
today Elizabeth Gyngell. I asked Elizabeth to come along. She
will introduce herself, but she works in our policy group. She
has particular responsibility for psycho-social issues which include
stress, bullying and violence at work. We just picked up from
reading the Surrey police's final report, that these were possibly
areas which you might want to explore. I shall hand you over to
Elizabeth to give a bit more of an introduction.
Ms Gyngell: My name is Elizabeth
Gyngell. I am the HSE's priority programme manager for our stress
work. That does cover a range of areas, but basically it is policy
development and working out what we then do with that.
Q471 Mike Gapes: Can you enlarge
a little on HSE's specific responsibility for health and safety
at Armed Forces' initial training establishments and how you fulfil
that responsibility?
Ms Caldwell: I shall start by
explaining the application of the law and then drill down to your
question. I hope that puts it into context for you. In the UK,
the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 applies to all Armed
Forces, so it covers all activities of Armed Forces. The Health
and Safety Executive is the enforcing authority for the Health
and Safety at Work Act. We have the responsibility of inspecting
MoD and its activities. In saying that the Health and Safety at
Work Act applies to all of MoD activities, I have to say that
is in respect of work activities. So what it would not cover would
be a recruit who was off duty, on leave, away from the barracks.
It is focusing on the work activity aspect. We also do not have
a remit for industrial relations or, in a sense, for pastoral
care. It is strictly for work related activity. Sometimes that
is very clear; if a soldier is on guard duty it is very clear
that would come within the Health and Safety at Work Act and we
would be the enforcing authority for those types of activities.
There may be some grey areas which we would have to have a look
at, depending on the individual circumstance. That is no different
from any other work place where somebody has access to a work
place and might be using the work place for their own private
activity and they are not at work.
Q472 Mike Gapes: Does that mean you
cover all MoD facilities in the United Kingdom?
Ms Caldwell: Yes.
Q473 Mike Gapes: Do you also have
responsibility for UK facilities outside the United Kingdom?
Ms Caldwell: No, the Act only
applies to the Great Britain. It does not apply, for example,
if there are troops in Germany. It does not extend beyond the
continental shelf.
Q474 Mike Gapes: So training which
was going on in Canada or Norway or Germany would not come under
your remit.
Ms Caldwell: This would not come
under our remit.
Q475 Mike Gapes: That is helpful.
Would there be any facilities in the UK which, for national security
reasons, you would not be able to visit?
Ms Caldwell: No, but there would
be special procedures, in particular vetting procedures and security
procedures. For example, our nuclear inspectorate deals with a
lot of such areas.
Q476 Mike Gapes: How many staff do
you have who are actually responsible for health and safety in
the Ministry of Defence?
Ms Caldwell: I am going to give
you an answer which you will probably say sounds as though I am
trying to avoid the question. In total the number of staff in
my division is something like 1,600 administrative staff and inspectors
and they are regionally based. We have two types of interaction
with the MoD. One is central approaches and we have what we call
a public services sector. They are staff who make the central
approaches to the Ministry of Defence's central health and safety
areas, they will look at the systems and procedures, some of the
discussions on some of the grey areas on the application of the
law. We then regionally have inspectors who at any one time may
or may not be inspecting the activities of the Ministry of Defence.
We do not have a dedicated cadre of inspectors just looking at
Ministry of Defence activities. They will be looking at the activities
of the police or the fire brigades as well. They are not just
dedicated to the Ministry of Defence.
Q477 Mike Gapes: Could you then easily
evaluate how much time your staff would spend on MoD-related matters?
Ms Caldwell: I could not. It would
not be particularly high to be honest.
Q478 Mike Gapes: Could you give me
some idea? Roughly how many days a year do you spend inspecting
MoD facilities?
Ms Caldwell: At the moment, because
we are working to the strategy set by the Commission which sets
our priorities, we would be mainly dealing with the MoD on a site
visit basis, purely on a reactive basis, looking at the investigation
of incidents.
Q479 Mike Gapes: You do not initiate
these yourself?
Ms Caldwell: There are some areas
where one of the regions may take an initiative because they may
have investigated an incident which has led to some concerns about
a particular activity and so they would go much wider.
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