Health and Safety

The Corporate Health and Safety team support the provision of health and safety services to the Royal Borough of Greenwich and to schools that subscribe to the Council’s Health and Safety services. This includes the provision of the incident reporting system, Schools’ Health and Safety site, Display Screen Equipment system and Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (CoSHH) system.

We process your information in line with the statutory requirements associated with Health and Safety, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the RIDDOR 2013, as the Council has a legal obligation to process data under these and other items of legislation. These obligations include the requirements to carry out appropriate risk assessments and to record incidents and near misses. 

We also use this data to help us learn from incidents, helping to prevent reoccurrence.

We also use your data provide advice and support to other parts of the Council in reference to the management of employee health conditions/disabilities, any civil or legal actions taken against the Council and to comply with all Health and Safety legislative requirements.

As part of the provision of the Schools Health and Safety Subscription Service, we may collect personal data from employees of these schools for the management and provision of this paid-for service. During the provision of Health and Safety advice and support to the schools we may use your personal data in reference to managing incidents, school employee health conditions/disabilities, any civil or legal actions taken against the school, and to comply with all Health and Safety legislative requirements.

In order for us to record incidents, carry out risk assessments, and provide advice and support and other Health and Safety services, the following information is collected:

• name
• address and contact details
• gender
• medical information, including medical conditions, injuries, pregnancy and any disabilities that you may have
• log in information for Health and Safety systems
• other information that is required for the purposes of investigating and recording incidents or for carrying out risk assessments

The categories of data subject whose data is used by the service includes:

• Council employees
• Councillors
• volunteers
• temporary and agency staff
• contractors and subcontractors on Council premises
• pupils and students (and their parents)
• teachers
• staff at schools that subscribe to the service
• service users, customers or members of the public using Council services, visiting Council premises or who witness an incident

Your data may be shared with the following:

• internal departments, including the department you work for and Human Resources
• Access to Work
• other third-party organisations, as allowed by law
• other partner agencies that provide services on our behalf
• agencies with whom we have a duty to co-operate, such as the Health and Safety Executive or the police
• your school, if you are a pupil, student, teacher or member of staff

• Incident reporting records where the injured person is an adult at the time of the accident are 4 years from the date of the incident.
• Accident reporting records where the injured person is a minor at the time of the accident are 21 years 4 months from the date of birth.
• Although RIDDOR states the date of notification +3 years, as the accident report forms are attached to these records, the RIDDOR records will be managed against the same retention period outlined above.
• Incidents reporting concerning exposure to asbestos and incidents reporting concerning radiation exposure will be kept 40 years from the time of incident.