The Bishop has recently issued an instruction that alongside the Safeguarding Representative every parish must have a voluntary Health and Safety Representative. Previous requests have not produced any volunteers for this role. A summary of the HS Representative role is outlined in the Diocesan HS Policy and Guidelines document (Section 2) and also explained in the Parish HS Awareness video (Part Two) available on SafetyToolbox (https://v2.app.safetytoolbox.co.uk/resources/1572).
Every HS Representative must have a SafetyToolbox Online User Account. Please provide the name(s) and email address(es) of your HS Representative(s) to the HS Coordinator at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for their User Account to be created. Once in post, the focus for your HS Representatives should be to ensure that the Set-Up Checklists on SafetyToolbox are up to date and that other tasks labelled Very High or High are completed. If your Representatives would like to arrange an induction or need help, they should contact the HS Coordinator at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. We monitor progress across our entire SafetyToolbox Online account and this year we will be contacting Parish Priests who are not yet fully engaging with SafetyToolbox Online to agree support and an action plan for improvement. This may involve support from our HS partner SafetyToolbox Ltd, the small charge being met from parish funds.
By way of explanation, a few years ago the Diocese abandoned on site inspections as too expensive and moved to this on-line support company. As we have three churches I have about 95 questionnaires/reports to keep updated—fortunately most are annual. The main day-to-day task is a monthly visual inspection (non-technical) of each church and corresponding questionnaire (which takes about 20 minutes to complete). Some reports or tests are organised directly by the Diocese—PAT tests, fire extinguishers, etc. If you feel this is something you could do please check out the video to which the link is provided above. It would also be possible to have a separate volunteer for each church if more than one person offered. Personally, I have no problem in continuing to file the reports as I am in each church every week, but this is the Bishop’s wish. It would also have the merit of involving parishioners directly in concern for these issues.
