No. 202/2020
Our Ref: E1/20
To: All Branches With Members In Royal Mail Group Dear Colleagues,
Royal Mail Group COVID-19 Risk Assessment The Health and Safety department has been liaising directly with the RMG Global Director Compliance & Sustainability on the subject of RMG business-wide assessments of risks associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The CWU strongly supports the development of a RMG wide risk assessment process together with specific risk assessments based on business and function. We requested confirmation that the business is developing risk assessments on this basis and confirmation of the RMG leads on this activity for each business/function, and that appropriate consultation would take place with the CWU in line with health and safety legislation. Shaun Davis RMG Global Director Compliance & Sustainability response is outlined below: As you will be aware, employers have a legal duty to risk assess their undertaking, responding to changes in risk profile and emerging issues. Sometimes circumstances occur that require an immediate response and I am sure you will understand that the global coronavirus pandemic is one of those occasions. I am sure you will also appreciate that due the fast-moving nature of this unprecedented situation, we are continually risk assessing to ensure our response remains appropriate – it is therefore the case that our risk assessments remain live documents. With regard to your question about the functional coronavirus risk assessments, I can also confirm that these have been undertaken. It is normal practice for large, diverse organisations to undertake risk assessments at multiple levels to ensure that essential detail is not lost and that employees are adequately protected from harm. With this in mind, we also intend to feed the functional risk assessments (and controls) into unit level coronavirus risk assessments – these site specific assessments will assist in capturing local variations and ensuring the adequacy of site-specific controls. As requested, the names of the functional coronavirus risk assessment leads are as follows: Delivery – Freddie Warnock and Emma Tranter; Processing and Collections – Jayne Callaghan-Jarvis; Driving – Emma Tranter and Paul Simmons; National Distribution – Stuart Harrison; Loading and Unloading – Stuart Harrison; Non-Operational – Matt Chappell; and Parcelforce – Robert Kelly.
I fully agree that it is important that the CWU is consulted in line with the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations (1977). I will therefore be covering these risk assessments in our discussions during the next national strategic involvement meeting via video conference I will also ask my team to provide the CWU with an update on the risk assessments during the next scheduled engagement meeting. Again, this will be via conference call or video conference. Thank you for the support expressed for these essential risk assessments. Progress has been made in developing these risk assessments across RMG. The following Unit Risk Assessments – Controlling the Spread of Coronavirus have been developed: Air Hubs & Rail Collections Deliveries Distribution Vehicle Maintenance Workshops, Fleet Administration Centres and Vehicle Breakdown/Incident Services International PFW Hubs PFW/Relay Depots Processing (including loading/unloading, driving and collections where applicable) All these Unit Risk Assessments are held in the RMG SHE Coronavirus Document Library. The Health and Safety department will also be circulating these Unit Risk Assessments to all ASRs in Royal Mail Group separately. The Coronavirus outbreak is a fast moving, unprecedented situation. The risk assessment will remain a live document and will be updated as required. Any enquiries relating to this LTB should be directed to Ray Ellis (rellis@cwu.org). Yours sincerely Ray Ellis Acting National Health, Safety & Environment Officer