Contract Monitoring

The Council supervises / monitors work with contractors in two ways:

EITHER

• Directly via competent Council staff responsible for the site, or those with delegated responsibilities for the site. In this case the Council has the responsibility for monitoring the contractor’s activities.

OR

• Via competent consultants / contactors acting on the Council’s behalf. In these cases, the consultants have responsibility, which should be clearly stated in the contact documents, and they must therefore carry out direct monitoring of contractor’s activities. Council employees also have a responsibility to monitor the work of the consultant to see they are fulfilling their responsibilities.

The large amount of small low risk and ongoing contract work being undertaken for the Council means that it is impossible for all work to be directly supervised. Therefore, it is essential that all Council employees take some responsibility for monitoring the work of contractors and take appropriate action should they feel that the health or safety of employees, clients, and members of the public is in anyway threatened by the activities of the contractor. See Section 8.1 of this document for details of the procedure for reporting unsafe activities.

9.1    On-Site Monitoring

Whilst the work is in progress the following persons have responsibilities for ensuring the work is carried out safely: -

Premises Managers should:

• Deal with any issues affecting health and safety presented by the contractor or work carried out and passing relevant information to the supervising officer (in some cases this person may also be the supervising officer and contracting officer); and
• Investigate any reports of unsafe working brought to their attention.

Employees should:

• Report unsafe acts or conditions to their supervisor / manager who will take the appropriate action.

9.2    Monitoring by Supervising Officers

Supervising Officers have responsibilities for       

• monitoring on site safety for risks to Council employees and non-employees;
• taking appropriate action where necessary; and
• recording findings and action taken.

The Supervising Officer is responsible for reviewing and investigating complaints about the health and safety performance of contractors and taking appropriate action. This person will directly monitor contracts in a number of different ways including measurement of Key Performance Indicators and site visits. A minimum target of 5% of works sites should be formally monitored annually and records must be kept.

The extent of monitoring may vary with the level of risk. See Part 3, Forms and Checklists, Appendix 8 for an example.

It is strongly recommended that the health and safety monitoring be linked to and carried out at the same time as quality monitoring.

Model guide outline of procedures for monitoring and review of contractors, other than supply of goods contracts.