Minutes of the 123rd meeting of the Board of the Health and Safety
Executive for Northern Ireland held on Thursday 27 October 2022 in the T&R room, HSENI, Ladas Drive, at 9:30a.m.
Present:
Board members:
- Mr D Martin – Chair
- Mr H Sinclair
- Mr T Wright
- Mr S McDowell
- Mr A Cooke
- Mrs S Rooney
- Dr P Hart
- Mrs C Irwin
- Mr G Strong
HSENI Officials:
- Mr R Kidd - Cheif Executive
- Dr B Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- Mrs N Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- Mr K Neeson - Deputy Chief Executive
- Mr L Burns - Deputy Chief Executive
- Mr M Ditchfield - HSENI Finance Unit
- Ms L Nelson - Minute taker
The Chair welcomed everyone and thanked all for their attendance at the HSENI Board meeting.
1. Apologies
No apologies received.
2. Corporate Health, Safety and Welfare
The Chief Executive reported that there were no issues to report.
3. Declaration of Conflict of Interest(s)
None to report.
4. Minutes from previous meeting
The minutes of the Board meetings held on 28 July and 31 August 2022 were circulated to Board members prior to the meeting. The minutes were approved and adopted.
5. Matters Arising
The Chief Executive reported that all action points have been actioned.
6. Chair to comment on draft HSENI Corporate Plan
The Chair thanked everyone for their comments at the meeting on 12 October 2022 to review and agree the draft Corporate Plan to allow it to be issued to the Minister.
The draft plan was submitted for Ministerial approval on 17 October 2022. The Minister approved the draft document on 24 October 2022. The document will be edited with the final year of statistics and final year review completed during April/May 2023.
The Board will receive a copy of the plan in May 2023 before publication and launch of the plan in June 2023.
The Chair thanked everyone for their contribution to the plan.
7. Audit and Risk Management Committee (ARMC) Report
The ARMC Chair highlighted the following as having been discussed at the ARMC meeting on 13 October 2022:
- Re-establishment of pre-meeting with Internal and External Auditors to facilitate informal discussion.
- Agreed and adopted the minutes from 31 August 2022.
- Internal Audit update on the Asbestos Campaign. A ‘Satisfactory’ assurance rating was received with one priority 2 recommendation. Management have accepted the recommendation.
- Final Report to those charged with Governance (RTTCWG) - overall audit view was that this was a good clean audit. Two issues in relation to amortisation and one uncorrected mis-statement. The ARMC Chair reported that this was reflective of the hard work of HSENI staff and expressed thanks to all staff involved.
- Audit recommendations progress paper.
- GDPR recommendations progress paper - good progress continues to be made on the recommendations outside of HSENI’s remit.
- Risk register - content with the document in general. A discussion took place in relation to emerging risks and the need to include a risk assessment on likelihood and impact for emerging risks in relation to the pay award and the potential for strike action by staff. It was agreed SMT would consider a worst case scenario for both emerging risks and update the risk register accordingly.
- Review of ARMC Terms of Reference (TOR) - This is not seen as a critical issue. It was agreed to review the ARMC TOR and discuss at the January 2023 ARMC meeting. The ARMC Chair requested that a model TOR be circulated to ARMC members for reference.
Mr Strong queried what Genesis was as referred to in the Asbestos Campaign audit. The Chief Executive explained that it is an advertising agency contracted by HSENI via CPD to provide assistance during campaigns.
Mr Strong asked what pay award has been offered to staff and what would the impact be on HSENI. The Chief Executive reported that no offer had been made to staff from Management side because there is no Executive to sign off on it.
Dr Hart asked if the emerging risks referred to in the draft minutes have been moved to Business Disruption Risk as suggested by Ms McHugh, CavanaghKelly (HSENI's Internal Auditors). The Chief Executive reported that SMT views these as emerging risks at present as there is not enough known about strike action or the pay award.
ACTION: ARMC members to be circulated a model terms of reference.
8. Remuneration Committee Report
The Chair reported that the terms of reference (TOR) for the Remuneration Committee are no longer within the Board remit. Advice was sought from the Department and it was confirmed that no other Arms-length Body has a remuneration committee. The Chair proposed to stand down the Remuneration Committee.
A lengthy discussion took place and it was the consensus of the Board that they were not comfortable to support this proposal. The Chair stated that he understood the concerns from the Board members and proposed bringing this point to the February 2023 Board meeting. He suggested it might be a good idea to form a small Committee to agree an updated TOR to discuss at the February 2023 meeting.
ACTION: A Committee to be formed to agree an updated TOR and Remuneration Committee to be carried forward to the February 2023 Board meeting.
9. Chief Executive’s Report
The Chief Executive highlighted the following key points:
- Fatalities/Serious Injuries figures
- Inspection numbers
- Complaints
- Increase in Improvement Notices (INs) and Prohibition Notices (PNs) – due to the welding initiative
- Trainee Inspector update
- Annual Report and Accounts
- Risk register
- Annexes
A discussion took place in relation to the benefits of the welding initiative leading to the increase in INs and PNs and industry not availing of the information available.
Mrs Rooney asked if there would be further recruitment of trainees in the future. Mrs Monson stated that SMT has been in discussion in relation to this but the problem is securing funding for the new posts. Mrs Rooney stated that it was excellent to see the recruitment of trainees now in placement and the training programme working well. The Chair and Chief Executive thanked both Mrs Monson and Ms Donaghy (Head of Trainee Inspector Co-ordination) for their hard work on the training programme.
10. Finance Report
The following items on the Finance report were highlighted by Mr Ditchfield:
- October monitoring round submitted on 13 September 2022 with easements totalling £133k;
- Update on adjustments made to the budget figure;
- Update on budget vs forecast;
- Capital allocation breakdown.
Mr Ditchfield assured the Board that providing the October monitoring round submission is accepted, HSENI is in a healthy position, with the overall underspend currently projected at 0.8%. There are two more opportunities for HSENI to bid, reallocate and declare easements in January monitoring rounds one and two. FMU continues to monitor the financial situation.
Mr Ditchfield reported that Financial Management Unit has asked Department for Economy (DfE) how it is going to deal with allocating money in relation to the pay award. HSENI will mirror the Department. HSENI plans to carry out two scenarios factoring a 2.5% pay increase and also what was reported in the email from Department of Finance (DoF) in relation to the pay award and will accrue a certain amount similar to the Department.
Mrs Rooney asked if HSENI needed to buy a new van as outlined in 4 (b). A discussion took place in relation to the logistics in procuring a new van as there was a 12 – 14 month wait. HSENI may have to return the money before year end and is not guaranteed to receive this money next year in the capital budget.
11. Legislation Report
Mr Burns summarised the paper as:
Amendment to the Personal Protective Equipment Regs (NI) 1993 / Dangerous Goods in Harbour Areas (NI) (inc. Approved Code of Practice) / and Approval for use in NI of the Office for Nuclear Radiation/HSE Radiation (Emergency Prepardeness and Public Information) Regulations (REPPIR) Approved code of Practices are awaiting Ministerial/Executive approval.
Amendments to the Gas Safe Management Regs and Health and Safety Fees Reg - HSENI are waiting on HSE GB to finalise.
Freight Containers (Safety Convention) Regs 2023 and The Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regs (NI) 2011 have been allocated to Departmental Solicitors’ Office for legal advice.
The Board noted the remainder of the report.
Any other business (AOB)
Annual Report and Accounts
The Chair reported that at the 31 August Board meeting members had queries in relation to the formatting, content and layout of the Annual Report. At that time the Report was ready to be laid in the Assembly and it was decided that presentational changes would be discussed at a later date to be considered for the Annual Report going forward. The Chair suggested that Board members review the report and submit proposed changes, and that if necessary a workshop can be arranged in the new year for further discussion on amendments to be incorporated into the 2022/23 report, subject to Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) reporting requirements.
Mr Burns reported the Annual Report and Accounts is approximately two weeks from printing. The Chair requested that a hard copy be sent to Board members once they are printed.
ACTION: Board members to review the Annual Report and submit proposed changes.
ACTION: Printed copy of Annual Report to be sent to Board Members.
DfE Oversight and Liaison (O&L) Minutes
Board members noted the O&L minutes for information.
HSENI Conflicts of Interest Guidance
Mr Burns reported that the HSENI Conflicts of Interest Guidance had been updated to align with the Department’s.
The Board approved the updated HSENI Conflicts of Interest Guidance.
2023 Board Meeting dates
The Chair highlighted the 2023 Board meeting dates and asked everyone to note the dates:
- 2 February 2023
- 27 April 2023
- 22 June 2023
- 27 July 2023
- 26 October 2023
Dr Hart asked if it would be possible to move the start time for meetings to 10:00am to accommodate those Board members with long journeys. Going forward, it was agreed that Board meetings would commence at 10:00am.
The Chair thanked all for attending.
13. Date of next Board Meeting
The next Board meeting will be held on Thursday 2 February 2023 at 10:00a.m.
The meeting ended at 11:40a.m.
These Board meeting minutes were adopted, approved and signed by the HSENI Chairman, Derek Martin on Thursday 2 February 2023.