Rochdale businesses get your share of £80,000

Groundwork's Claire Igoe, Senior Advisor, and Karen Cox, Environmental Business Advisor, receiving and award from Lord Hunt, the minister responsible for health & safety

Groundwork Oldham & Rochdale have been successful in gaining funding for the second year running to raise health and safety awareness in small and medium sized (SME) businesses, particularly those owned by ethnic minorities.  Excellent results last year made them an obvious choice to be one of the 13 of over 50 project applicants nationwide to secure funding.  Groundwork Oldham & Rochdale have secured £80,000 from the Health and Safety Executive’s Workers’ Safety Adviser (WSA) Challenge Fund that enables them to provide health and safety advice to businesses free of charge throughout Rochdale. 

Over 39 million working days are lost as a result of workplace accidents, injuries and ill-health, and as much as 70% of these accidents could be prevented if employers put effective safety control measures in place.

The aim of the project is to increase worker involvement and consultation in health and safety issues with the help of a Workers’ Safety Adviser (WSA).  The WSA will make a number of visits to 80 companies, across the four areas, offering support and advice on specific health and safety issues, help to build relations between employers and staff, produce an action plan for improvement in the business, as well as providing training opportunities for employers and staff.

Karen Cox one of the WSA’s on the project said, “It has been found that workers who have a voice, influence, and responsibility for health and safety matters are safer and healthier than those who do not. This project enables employees to drive improvements in health & safety within their workplace." Groundwork Oldham & Rochdale are delighted to have the opportunity to build on the success of last year’s project and to encourage more businesses to involve their workers in health and safety.

Partners supporting this project include Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton and Bury Councils, the Asian Business Association (ABA) in Oldham, Ethnic Minority Business Support in Rochdale and the Ethnic Minority Business Service in Bolton.

To be eligible for this project you must be an SME with less than 250 employees based within Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton or Bury and be keen to improve health and safety standards and levels of worker involvement in the workplace. Businesses should be able to commit to undertake at least three visits from a WSA over a 12 month period and complete an evaluation.

Contact: Businesses wishing to participate should contact Karen Cox at Groundwork Oldham & Rochdale on 0161 624 1444 or by email to karen.cox@groundwork.org.uk