Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 43


     
     1        months afterwards, so it was top management that was
     2        involved which, to be honest with you, is a lot higher
     3        level than the task force.
     4
     5   Q.   Were the incidents of other electric shocks discussed at
     6        these meetings?
     7        A.  They certainly have been since.
     8
     9   Q.   There have been problems with the tills giving electric
    10        shocks, have there not, in some stores?
    11        A.  I know of one electric shock from a till system.
    12
    13   Q.   Which store was that at?
    14        A.  I think that was at Rugby, and it was two or three
    15        years ago.
    16
    17   Q.   You are not aware of any in the southern region?
    18        A.  Not that spring to mind, no.
    19
    20   Q.   Can I just ask a couple of questions about the Health and
    21        Safety Executive report.  There are just a couple of things
    22        I wanted to clarify.  Sorry, it is volume XIII, I think,
    23        tab 55.  If you turn to page 827  under paragraph 2.36,
    24        I think part of this was read yesterday:  "Crew meetings
    25        are important, but their frequency was variable and the
    26        inclusion of health and safety tended to be reactive.  Some
    27        restaurants held them monthly, displayed agendas in crew
    28        rooms beforehand and arranged follow-up social events to
    29        help boost attendance."   Is that a social event
    30        immediately after that?
    31        A.  I would not know.
    32
    33   Q.   You do not know. "But, in other cases they were quite often
    34        only arranged to inform of new promotions ... which were
    35        being introduced" -- presumably, when it say "promotions",
    36        that is talking about special offers ---
    37        A.  Yes, I would think so.
    38
    39   Q.   -- "rather than to provide a regular update and a forum for
    40        an exchange of information.  They had been used effectively
    41        in some stores when introducing the COSHH procedures, where
    42        they had been organised specifically for this purpose.  In
    43        routine crew meetings health and safety discussion was
    44        limited generally to highlighting outstanding
    45        equipment/premises disrepair or reacting to some failure.
    46        Health and safety was not being incorporated routinely into
    47        regular crew meetings in such a way that it was promoted
    48        positively."
    49
    50        Is that generally the practice at stores, that if there is 
    51        an item in disrepair, a piece of equipment in disrepair, 
    52        that it would be brought up at a crew meeting rather than 
    53        just being dealt with, you know, as and when it was
    54        discovered?
    55        A.  I would expect in most stores, and again going back to
    56        my time when I was a manager, for crew and managers to come
    57        to me if they saw anything that they were concerned about.
    58        However, a structured part of the rap sessions is to go
    59        through different sorts of equipment to see if there have
    60        been any problems, and since crew meetings routinely follow

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