Workplace healtH and safety Annual Report 2024/25

Thank you, through the Chair. Good afternoon, Clint councils. We have Julianne Hoban and the manager of community and culture with us today. We also have Craig Hodgson. Both Julianne and Craig will take you through the annual workplace health and safety report.

I can respond to that. We don't, other than user charges, similar to the questioning before. Parking fines, that revenue will just come back into consolidated revenue or that savings, it's not like it comes then directly or we take a clip and bring it over to workplace health and safety. We would just go through the normal budget process through the year and if we've identified that we needed a larger expenditure obviously that would be offset then by those savings. But they're that revenue doesn't come the line into item in people and culture, into the line item in people and culture, if that makes sense. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, I just wanted to provide through the Chair again to give you some confidence through the auditing as well so the office of justice attorney in general which is where workplace health and safety as a department sits under they will regularly review any even such as this Council meeting and the report that's tabled with the Minutes they have operatives that regularly scan Council meetings and also would look at our annual report and any of the statistics with LGW if they ever saw anything of concern then they would as the regulator initiate an audit now we've not had that in my understanding of Council so but just to give you some confidence that there is a regulator will um scan their eyes so there is oversight there and if they have an issue then they will and it will be a compliance order we won't have any opportunity to say we can't participate because we're too busy that will just be imposed upon us so that does that yeah that's there.

Brian Stockwell50:54

But I support the amendment- What he said is a better three minute question than you said it in five seconds here. Others? I will close it. I actually was thinking about the idea of signing, but I would think that had a few strategically located signs about illegal camping. Camp here, $666. Camp at one of Council's caravan parks, $35. And let them make the decision, no? But, yes, I think okay, oop. Okay. So that's all I have to say. I'll put the motion. Those in favour? Yes. Oh, thank you. That's carried unanimously, so Thank you. Thanks, Clint. Thank you, Hayley. See you. Next item is 3, workplace health and safety and reports 24/25. And we have Director Gatt and two workplace health and safety-looking people. With woodby, I'll let you introduce our.

Right through to. They're very thorough to on-the-spot site visits, where they will. Go around and visit all of our sites, ask staff questions. So they're very, very thorough. So typically, in the past, they've always been done every three or four years, because they can't possibly do every Council every year. But we are always appreciative of an audit. Know, we have a very strong workplace health and safety culture at Noosa Council but there's always room to improve. And we always get valuable learnings out of those audits.

And through the Chair, if I can just highlight on that, the increase that you will see in that area. Five on near miss reporting. Craig did mention that earlier on in speaking point, but I just wanted to highlight that for the community as well. That's a very positive increase. So that's an increase of 34. And that's as a consequence of the health and safety reps leading toolbox tours, so that they highlight the value of reporting near misses. And that's critical in identifying potential hazards before they lead to injury. So it's almost like a converse. It's an increase, but it's very positive. And I suppose the other one I wanted to emphasise as well is the reduction in incidences involving property by 11 in relation to Council and private vehicles. Yeah, I just thought I'd make that point. And the other one that I just thought I'd point out, under workplace health and safety training, so whilst that does not look particularly positive under section 7 of the report, where it's saying we've only averaged 64%, which falls below expectations, what happens is with our current system, it issues out take 5. Take five or training. Requests across the whole organisation. So as an example, it will issue one to say the Acting Director of corporate that might be related to working at heights or confined space training. Silica dust training. Now that's not related to my role. Yes, I could undertake that training so that I'm aware of what the code of practice is saying, but I probably wouldn't prioritise that. Conversely, there might be some office-based training that is distributed to an external staff member that's not relative. So that's how those statistics get a little bit blurred, but we're looking at a potential alternative data capture and reporting system for workplace health and safety moving forward that we hope has got a lot more smarts and analytics in it and that we can provide more clarity in our reporting. Appreciate it.

If you're going to look for any area of significant improvement it's in our back end workplace health and safety system which was a good system a good system when we put it in but it is now well outdated and it makes it difficult for really interrogate data it produces kind of bulk data not nuanced data that helps us really identify where the gaps and opportunities are where the problems might be that would be I think our next maturing as a workplace health and safety culture.

Frank Wilkie69:22

We've received workplace health and safety reports before. This to my memory is the most detailed and extensive I've ever seen. It has a lot of data in there that I, too, would appreciate an extra session to unpack to understand the training and that you've got underway or plan to implement to mitigate these risks. So I really appreciate it, there's a lot of things I do not understand that you're doing at an operational level and I would like to, because I know it's important work. And Craig, I would thank you for your report. It is, as I said, the most comprehensive WH &S report I've seen. And you perhaps have the most important job in the organisation because. Your role is about ensuring that our employers are kept safe and that they go home safely to their families. And I know that everything in this report, from what I've read, is geared towards lowering that lost time to injury rate, which is the most important. Sure getting it as close to zero as possible. But in order to do that, I would appreciate another session, because there's a lot of really great programs underway and proposed, and thank you very much for the work you're doing.

Brian Stockwell75:53

I think we may I'll talk. I think I have brought him back though. By now previously have if we had to. Some guest speakers on workplace health and safety issues like ex-Bronco player Shane Webcke if any of our staff are sharks supporters or raiders supporters you might want to make a special effort this week.