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Health and Safety Representative Training
One day for the person who ends up in the safety meeting. What a safety representative is entitled to do, what the law actually gives you, and how to raise something so it gets fixed rather than minuted.
About this course
Safety representatives sit in an odd position. They are usually the person who cares, rather than the person with authority, and the difference between a good one and a frustrated one is mostly knowing what the role entitles them to.
It entitles them to a good deal. Depending on how they were appointed, representatives have rights to inspect the workplace, to investigate accidents and complaints, to be consulted in good time on anything affecting health and safety, to paid time off to carry out the role and to train for it, and to receive information from the employer.
This day covers where those rights come from: the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 for union appointed representatives, and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 where there is no recognised union. The two routes differ and it matters which one you are on.
Then it covers doing the job: carrying out a workplace inspection that finds real things, reading a risk assessment critically, handling a concern raised by a colleague, putting a case to management in terms that get action, and knowing when something has gone far enough to involve the enforcing authority.
- Where the role comes from: the 1977 and 1996 regulations, and the difference between them
- What a safety representative is entitled to do, and what they are not responsible for
- The right to paid time off, both for the role and for training
- The employer's duty to consult, and what consultation in good time actually means
- Carrying out a workplace inspection that produces findings rather than a tick list
- Reading a risk assessment critically and spotting what has been assumed away
- Investigating an accident or a near miss, and what to look for beyond the immediate cause
- Handling a concern raised in confidence by a colleague
- Putting a case to management so it gets acted on, including how to use cost and risk language
- Safety committees: how to make one useful rather than a standing meeting
- When and how to involve the enforcing authority, and protection from detriment
How completing this course helps you
- An Acadame certificate in Health and Safety Representative Training
- Representatives who know what they are entitled to and will use it
- Inspections and reports that management can act on
- A consultation arrangement that works rather than one that exists
Who should attend?
Elected and appointed health and safety representatives, union safety representatives, representatives of employee safety, safety committee members, and the managers who sit opposite them and want the arrangement to work. Also useful for anybody stepping into the role for the first time.
Entry requirements. None. It assumes no previous training and it is written for the people doing the work rather than the people writing the policy.
Ready to take the next step?
Choose a delivery option, compare dates and book with confidence, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Where it sits
Representative training is not a management qualification
This day is about the representative role: rights, consultation, inspection and getting things fixed. It is not a management qualification and it does not make anybody the competent person for health and safety.
If the person also carries management responsibility for health and safety, that is different ground and IOSH Managing Safely or a NEBOSH certificate is the right route. Plenty of representatives go on to one of those later.
Keep the two separate deliberately. A representative who becomes the person responsible for fixing everything stops being a representative, and the consultation arrangement quietly disappears.
New representative
This one day course. Rights, functions, inspections and how to put a case.
Manager with safety duties
IOSH Managing Safely, three days, or a NEBOSH certificate where the role is bigger than that.
Everybody else
IOSH Working Safely, one day, so the workforce understands what is being consulted about.
Course content
What you will cover
The qualification is structured around the management of health and safety and the practical application of risk assessment.
The role and the law
- The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977
- The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996
- Union appointed representatives and representatives of employee safety
- Functions and rights, and the things that are not your responsibility
- Paid time off for the role and for training
- Protection from detriment
Doing the job
- Workplace inspections: planning, carrying out and recording
- What a good inspection finding looks like
- Reading and challenging a risk assessment
- Investigating accidents, incidents and near misses
- Handling a concern raised by a colleague
- Keeping records and following things up
Getting things done
- Consultation: what the employer must do and when
- Safety committees and how to make one work
- Presenting a case to management that gets action
- Escalating internally when nothing happens
- The enforcing authority: when to involve them and how
- Building a working relationship rather than an adversarial one
Method of assessment
How this course is assessed
Discussion, exercises and a short written check. The day is built around practice rather than lecture.
Inspection exercise
Carrying out a mock workplace inspection and writing up the findings, then comparing what different people noticed. Run onsite, this happens in your own building.
Case exercise
Taking a real issue and building the case for it, then presenting it. This is the skill representatives most often say they lacked.
Written check and certificate
A short paper covering the rights, the functions and the consultation duty. An Acadame certificate on completion.
Ways to learn
How you can take this course
Every route covers the same accredited syllabus and the same support. Pick the one that fits how your people work.
Classroom
Tutor-led at one of our centres, with everything provided.
Ask us to open a classroom date →or ask MB nowDates and locations
Arrange this course
There are no scheduled dates for this course at the moment. It is normally arranged around you.
Tell us roughly when you need it and how many people are going, and we will come back with dates and a price.
Also available
In-company training
We run this one to order, at your place or ours.
Onsite / in-company
Run Health and Safety Representative at your site
We deliver anywhere in the UK, on your dates and around your shift patterns. For six or more people it is usually cheaper per head than sending everyone to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling.
Tell us roughly how many people and when, and we will come back with options and a price, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
What onsite includes
- The same tutor, materials and certification as our centres
- Your venue or one we arrange near you
- Dates and start times built around your operation
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole group
- Content examples drawn from your own workplace
Health and Safety Representative FAQs
Yes, and to paid time off for it. Union appointed safety representatives have that right under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977, and representatives of employee safety have equivalent provision under the 1996 consultation regulations. The employer is expected to bear the cost.
How they were appointed and which regulations apply. A safety representative is appointed by a recognised trade union under the 1977 regulations and has the broader set of functions. A representative of employee safety is elected by the workforce where there is no recognised union, under the 1996 regulations. The course covers both because people often do not know which they are.
No. The functions given to safety representatives do not create additional legal duties or liabilities on them, and that is worth knowing because the worry puts people off the role. The duty to manage health and safety stays with the employer.
Yes, and it is often worth it. A manager who understands what a representative is entitled to, and what good consultation looks like, usually gets a better safety committee out of it. Some employers run a joint session deliberately.
Acadame. It is general awareness training rather than a regulated qualification, which is the right shape for this subject: it is built around what your people actually do and it can be adapted to your own equipment, substances and procedures. Where a regulated qualification is what you need instead, we will say so and point you at it.
Yes, anywhere in the UK, and it is usually the better option. Training on your own equipment, in your own building, with your own procedures in front of people, transfers to the job in a way a generic venue does not.
Up to twelve on a standard session. For practical subjects we will talk through numbers with you, because a room of twenty watching two people practise is not training.
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