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Health and safety

HomeServe has continued to strive to successfully manage health and safety and where possible, deliver improvements in its performance. HomeServe’s strategy is to ensure compliance with legal standards as a minimum, but where practicable adopt good industry practice, whilst ensuring good practice is shared across the businesses.

During the last 12 months HomeServe has continued to engage proactively with its customers, clients, contractors and partners. HomeServe has had limited contact with the health and safety enforcing authorities during this reporting period, with no prosecutions or other enforcement action being taken against the Company for breaches of health and safety regulations.

During the last year the Company has undergone a significant restructure, including the disposal of a number of its operating businesses, however during this period the effective management of health and safety has remained a key business driver. The Company has consistently achieved an acceptable health and safety record through good leadership from the senior management team, the employment of competent health and safety professionals and active engagement with the workforce.

Each of the operating businesses is required to have a specific Health and Safety Policy which is underpinned by an appropriate management system that ensures an effective risk assessment process exists within those businesses. A key element for the effective management of health and safety within the organisation is the development of a culture in which line management actively demonstrates ownership of health and safety issues. HomeServe expects each of its operating businesses to ensure compliance with relevant health and safety legislation regardless of the country in which it is operating. Martin Bennett is the Main Board Director responsible for reporting on health and safety, but the Board as a whole remains responsible for health and safety issues across the Group.

There are a number of good practices being implemented within the UK businesses to ensure the continued safety of stakeholders. HomeServe continues to believe, and drives the principle that, line management must own and take responsibility for the effective management of the health and safety process.

Over the last two years HomeServe has invested in the use of proprietary training packages such as ‘IOSH Managing Safety’ and ‘IOSH Health and Safety for Senior Managers’ to ensure its managers have the correct toolkits for managing health and safety effectively. In addition, during the year, the network management business in the UK has achieved the ROSPA ‘Silver’ award for its health and safety performance.

HomeServe has continued to maintain acceptable standards of performance in terms of health and safety throughout the year, one measure of that performance is its accident and injury rates. During 2009/10 the accident rate across the UK operating businesses has continued to show an improving trend, although this was contributed to by the disposal of some businesses that operated in a potentially higher risk environment, such as the Glass and Locks business and the Property Repair business.

Number of RIDDOR reportable incidents

In the UK, under the requirements of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) certain types of accidents or incidents need to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive. HomeServe has had a good year in terms of the number of the reportable incidents with no fatalities, no defined major injuries or dangerous occurrences. However it did have a total of 16 defined ‘3 day’ RIDDOR reportable lost-time incidents, but this is a reduction from the previous year’s performance in which 37 such incidents were recorded.

In total during this period there were 126 accidents recorded, of which eight accidents required an employee to attend hospital for treatment. Overall a total of 252 working days were lost as a result of work related accidents.

As with previous years the main causes of the accidents or incidents were in respect of manual handling, slips, trips and falls, cuts and bruises or muscular strains. The overall incident rate for reportable incidents per 1,000 employees was 5.69, compared with a rate of 7.59 the previous year.

HomeServe continues to see the management of its contractors as critical to the effective management of health and safety risks. To improve the current process there has been continued investment in the internal auditing resource. A significant amount of time is spent working with contractors who work on domestic gas systems to ensure excellent standards of health and safety are achieved.

HomeServe ensures employees receive occupational health support when required and this is currently provided by the business HR functions.

Although a number of achievements have been made by the business in effectively managing health and safety it is expected that successful health and safety will remain a continued priority for HomeServe, with particular emphasis being placed on the continued reduction in the overall accident rate.

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