Day 127 - 23 May 95 - Page 54
1 better information it gives you about trends. We encourage
2 the management team in each restaurant and their safety
3 circles and safety co-ordinators to look at the trends in
4 the accident book to see if there is any particular area of
5 the restaurant or any particular piece of equipment that
6 could be causing them concern. It is not something we feel
7 we can do corporately because every restaurant is laid out
8 slightly differently.
9
10 Q. If a manager being conscientious and assiduous in his
11 duties spots what he thinks is a particular trend in a kind
12 of minor accident, what will he do with that information?
13 A. Well, he could act upon it himself if it was just
14 something local to the restaurant, maybe some of the safety
15 flooring needed replacing, it had become worn.
16
17 Q. But suppose he thought the fault probably lay with the
18 design of a particular kind of equipment, what would he do
19 about that?
20 A. We have a structure where within each operations
21 manager group -- now an operations manager has 20 to 30
22 stores and he will have about six area supervisors
23 reporting to him. Within each of those groups one of those
24 area supervisors will specialise in safety and he will be
25 the contact for all of the restaurants if they have any
26 concerns. Now that appointed supervisor as we call them
27 meets with my people every quarter, they meet as a group
28 regionally, so it gives them a way of feeding up he
29 information to my people who, in turn, can then assess:
30 "Well, is it something regional we need to address or
31 should we take it along to the Corporate Health and Safety
32 Steering Group meeting, or is it something hat we as a
33 department can get sorted out in the meantime or need to
34 get sorted out in the meantime."
35
36 Q. Yes, I understand. You mentioned a moment ago -- I do not
37 think we have had this, and forgive me if you have already
38 told us -- safety circles; what are those?
39 A. Each restaurant is required to set up, which I suppose
40 is a safety committee, a group of about eight to nine
41 people made up of hourly paid employees -- for example,
42 floor managers, dining area hostesses and crew members --
43 headed up by one of the management team, who again -- we
44 suggest that they give one of the management team a
45 specific brief for safety in the restaurant, and they will
46 head up the safety circle they meet every quarter, and we
47 give them some guidance on the sort of things they should
48 be discussing. But it is obviously reviewing any action
49 plans from the previous meeting, checking to see that the
50 restaurant has health and safety goals, that they are on
51 target, looking at the accident book, checking to see if
52 the environmental health officer has been in, that
53 everything has been done that they want.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When did they start?
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: I was going to ask that.
58 A. They started, it would be mid to late 1992.
59
60 Q. It was one of the things that was mentioned, was it not,
