Councillors Welcome Improving Accident Statistics

19th February 2009

The number of accidents reported to The Highland Council's Health and Safety team has significantly reduced, councillors have been advised.

In their annual report for 2007/8, the team report reductions in accidents and incidents across all categories and say the number of days lost due to accidents - 741 - has fallen to the lowest figure recorded since the Council was formed in 1996.

The number of serious incidents reported to the team has also fallen for the second year running.

A total of 2,095 accident reports were dealt with during 2007/8, 606 of which related to employees. The remaining 1,489 reports mainly related to pupils in schools and service users in residential and day care establishments.

Members of the Resources Committee noted that there had been a reduction in the numbers of slips, trips and falls and manual handling incidents.

There had, however, been an increase in the number of violent accidents to 239, but this was below the peak of 380 in 2002/3. Only a small percentage of violent incidents recorded related to physical violence. The majority related to threatening behaviour and verbal abuse.

Most violent incidents are recorded in Education Culture and Sport and Social Work. Both Services have taken action in recent years to address the problem through improved reporting and procedural arrangements, management intervention and targeted training.

Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Resources Committee, welcomed the noticeable reduction in the number of accidents reported and in the number of working days lost. She said: "Health and safety at work is a major priority for this Council. I am pleased that our accident record compares favourably with the Public Sector figures published by the Health and Safety Executive. Action plans have been produced should help to further reduce accidents in the three key areas of manual handling, slips, trips and falls, stress and violence."