Choosing Sypol
Following a review of its health and safety management, The Crown Estate decided to develop a tender for the use of a full-time, outsourced service from an external health and safety consultancy in order to support its business objectives and corporate responsibility targets.
Unlike other consultancies that responded to The Crown Estate's tender document, Sypol proposed an alternative strategy and believed its approach would add value by ensuring that, regardless of the nature of the work required, a suitable, qualified expert would always be available. A further benefit of working with Sypol would be the knowledge and experience its consultants had gained through working with other organisations.
The Crown Estate Corporate Support team was so impressed by this solution, which demonstrated that Sypol had taken the initiative to think through the issues, that a decision was quickly taken that Sypol should be selected as its partner for health and safety support.
An integral part of The Crown Estate team
The first stage of Sypol's work for The Crown Estate was a review of its existing health and safety management system, which included visiting all of its major locations in order to get a thorough understanding of the whole organisation and its operations. Having completed this audit and determined the overall health and safety requirements, Sypol recommended that there was no need for a full-time post and that a commitment of three days per week, backed by the support of its helpdesk staffed by experienced and knowledgeable health and safety experts, would be sufficient.
Sypol also advocated that rather than a traditional approach in which it would take a lead on all health and safety matters, it would work with The Crown Estate to facilitate a culture change in which line managers would take more responsibility for health and safety.
Sypol's remit is varied and includes looking at how policies and procedures are developed and implemented with a view to making guidance more straightforward so that the estate's wide range of personnel is able easily to determine and adhere to the rules and guidance that are appropriate to them.