Report: Cross-association Health & Safety Working Group, April 26 2017

The cross-association Health & Safety Working Group met at Olympia London on Wednesday, April 26, 2017, with Paul Brough of Olympia London taking the chair for the first time.

With 24 representatives from across the industry in attendance, the meeting began with a welcome from Brough, who introduced himself to the group before welcoming Alison Treacher from Global Experience Specialists (GES) as the new vice-chair of the group.

Following apologies and round-table introductions, the group approved the minutes of the previous meeting in October 2016 and moved straight on to the discussion topics on the agenda starting with updates from members about the ‘Stop the Drop' campaign, the widely supported and publicised initiative to raise awareness about, and encourage safe practice in, working at height.

With the campaign receiving plenty of support and engagement from across the whole industry, Chris Skeith, Association of Event Organisers (AEO) CEO, encouraged all association members to endorse the campaign and have their logo included on the ‘Stop the Drop' website, and to make full use of the plentiful and helpful learning and marketing collateral that is now available from the website (www.stop-the-drop.co.uk).

Skeith also invited members to submit their photos of safe working at height to build a gallery of ‘good practice' photos for reference and awareness purposes.

The group then moved on to discuss forklift truck (FLT) operations at events and the need to understand how issues surrounding their use at events are being addressed by various group members' organisations. There was general agreement that policies, like using banksmen, and segregating FLTs by time, were universally in place.

Members discussed accident reporting, and agreed there was an appetite for consistent reporting procedures in order to be able to make meaningful comparisons over time. The group then discussed refinement to reporting including the recording of near-misses as well as actual accidents, and the value of anecdotal reporting to providing a complete picture of emerging issues and trends in safety. The group agreed that all members would share their top three findings from their own accident statistics at following meetings, to ensure any trends, learning points or new guidance are shared across the whole industry.

After a briefly touching on HSE inspections and late alterations to shell scheme builds, the group then agreed several future agenda items for the next meeting on Wednesday October 11, 2017 at NEC, Birmingham.

Three diary dates were highlighted during ‘any other business,' namely the AEO awards on June 16 at Grosvenor house, AEV conference on June 29 at The Vox, Birmingham, and the AEO conference, September 7-8 at The Vox, Birmingham.

Having concluded the business of the day, Paul Brough thanked the assembled members for attending and closed the meeting.