Health, safety and wellbeing

HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELLBEING (HS&W)

Health and safety are a priority at Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, demonstrated with the formation of a standalone operations committee that reviews HS&W at each meeting and a trust board that lists HS&W as a standing item on its meeting agendas.

The Sanctuary protects our people by doing everything reasonably practicable to minimise or eliminate health and safety risks at work. Our aim is to see everyone go home safely every day and we appreciate the often-unsung efforts our HS&W committee members go to ensuring that aim is met.

Health safety and wellbeing is regulated by an act of parliament and is the responsibility of all trustees, volunteers and staff and is one of the three most significant threats to the success of the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary Trust. The trustees each have equal responsibility to exercise due diligence in understanding how well the trust complies with the Act and whether HS&W performance is satisfactory. The issues that arise in the successful delivery of HS&W are set out in the Act and in simple terms reduce to five requirements:

• Does the BWST have an embedded culture of continuous improvement?

• Is HS&W understood and practised by all BWST personal?

• Are there sufficient resources to deliver HS&W?

• Is there any training required?

• Is data being collected and does it show any more frequent causes of risk exposure that need to be reduced? The committee has been assigned the responsibilities of The Board which are:

• To ensure the BWST Board complies with its responsibility under the Health and Safety at

Work Act. as the Person Controlling the Business or Undertaking (PCBU).

• To carry out the functions of the Health and

Safety Committee as defined in the Act.

More generally the Committee aims to ensure the Health and Safety of workers who work for the BWST, and of workers influenced or directed by the BWST. This responsibility extends to other persons to ensure their Health and Safety is not to put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the BWST.

The CE attends meetings and up to two volunteers are invited periodically to observe and contribute. A separate report is submitted to the Board through the CE.