Managing Health and Safety for Baker Tilly

System Concepts manages health and safety for Baker Tilly, and acts as their competent person as required by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

 Baker Tilly is a national firm of accountants and business advisers with a network of  offices in  various locations across the UK.  Lisa Clare, their HR Advisor, explains the benefits:

“With a large number of offices spread across the UK, we found our health and safety arrangements could not be fully managed by one person.

Working with System Concepts gave us immediate access to a wide range of expertise, and full geographical coverage.  We like their open, honest approach and benefit from their experience, particularly working with other companies who have professional staff working on client sites.”

Health and safety management system

Our first job was to help Baker Tilly get a robust health and safety management system in place.  We:

• Audited  their current policies, procedures and assessments
• Developed and implemented a plan for bringing these up to date, ensuring they met legal compliance and used best practice
• Developed a usable health and safety manual and efficient documentation and procedures

 Organisation and training

We took a national approach to the organisation and training needs of Baker Tilly staff with health and safety responsibilities.  Each office has an appointed person (AP) who is responsible for day to day health and safety in their office, and an Office Managing Partner who has overall responsibility.

We developed and delivered a customised 3 day training course for all APs and a half day customised briefing for the managing partners of each office, to ensure they all had a good understanding of their health and safety responsibilities and the skills they need to fulfil them.

This has been followed up with national quarterly meetings for APs, which our consultants facilitate, providing advice and guidance and answering questions.

 On-going support

System Concepts, led by principal consultant Laura Milnes, provides expert support to the APs whenever they need it.  This is just some of the feedback we have received:

You have given me great support and it is great to know that you are a phone call away.  When I have needed your help you have given great advice, support and knowledge.

Heather Chennell – Appointed Person Guildford office

Laura provides an exceptional support service for all areas of health and safety.  Any queries I have raised have been dealt with efficiently, effectively and practically.

Vikki Platt – Appointed Person Stoke on Trent office

Laura's advice has proved time and time again to be invaluable.  System Concepts’ safe, professional advice is of great comfort when dealing with difficult situations. I have grown in confidence knowing my learning curve is supported with sound knowledge.

Janet May – Appointed Person Bromley office

Development of online training

One issue we identified early on was the provision of health and safety induction training.  Baker Tilly used an off-the-shelf online package which was more geared to ‘hard hats and toetectors’ than professional office staff.  Working with Baker Tilly’s internal training and IT departments, System Concepts wrote the content for customised online health and safety induction training, including an online Display Screen Equipment (DSE) assessment, checklist and instructions on safe setup and use of workstations.  This has now been rolled out to all staff members and is used by all new joiners.

What does the client say?

Since appointing System Concepts we have made amazing progress with our health and safety arrangements.  Our policies, procedures, risk assessments and manual are now useful and up to date, we have relevant induction training and lots of useful information on our intranet.

Laura is fantastic, she is always contactable and provides great support to the APs.  She works directly with them to build their skills and confidence, keeping the management informed without getting them unnecessarily involved.

Lisa Clare, HR Advisor

 I always find my queries are dealt with very promptly and the advice given is easy to understand and put into action.  It is re-assuring to know we have such great support.  Laura is so down to earth and makes health and safety matters look a lot less complicated and easier to deal with.

Bernadette Sullivan – Appointed Person, London Office