Blog: Health, Safety and Wellbeing SECBE Awards 2019 finalist - Highways England H&S Passport

16 May 2019

sponsored by Day Aggregates

Highways England Health & Safety Passport - submitted by Reference Point

The Health & Safety Passport Steering Group comprises a unique and powerful collaboration between representatives from Tier 1 and 2 suppliers, Highways England, Lantra, Reference Point and Mitie. The Steering Group has been instrumental in planning, implementing, launching, communicating and continually developing the Passport scheme and growing its reputation within the industry.

Highways England’s road network covers approximately 4,300 miles. This major network is responsible for carrying two thirds of heavy goods traffic and one third of all other traffic. Across the Highways England network, hundreds of construction schemes are underway at any one time. One of Highways England’s key principles is safety; with the aim that no one should be harmed when travelling or working on the strategic road network.

As part of Highways England’s 5‐year Health and Safety Plan, Action 38, the Health & Safety Passport Steering Group was created and has been instrumental in transforming the way the network’s workforce is managed; whether directly employed or in the supply chain. Mitie and Reference Point are the team that provide the software, technology and service. Mitie are responsible for the administration of the service: managing access, training and supporting users, card fulfilment and invoicing.

The passport strives to simplify the method of gaining access to construction sites with a personalised smartcard, assuring competency, qualification and fitness to work across Highways England’s construction workforce. It will make it simpler for staff to transfer between sites and for companies to verify that the people who work for them have the training, qualifications and competencies to work on any site. The card is checkable using smartphone technology to help build a picture of the workforce and help colleagues to transfer between sites and suppliers with ease.

Working together with over twenty different suppliers and partners from across the industry, the common introduction course delivered by Lantra covers all major projects and construction and renewal sites. Alongside the common induction training, a passport smartcard will be issued to the individual who will be able to carry around their training record, qualifications and competency details in their pocket wherever they work.

The Steering Group is committed, driven and passionate; combined with the fact that they care and value all those that work on or for the network is testament that the Steering Group is at the very core of Highways England’s: “Home safe and well”.

Highlights:

• The Steering Group’s commitment, drive and passion share ideas, experience and learning from each other openly, creating ways to work better, more safely and build on the improvements that deliver real benefits to the whole industry
• Unusually for such a system, use of Passport is voluntary and was in fact initiated by the supply chain. This is another reason why support for the Scheme is so widespread across contractors – large and small – and why uptake of the system has increased each month
• Continuous innovation is leading the way in driving substantive and measurable improvements in efficiency, consistency and resource planning across the whole strategic network and wider

For more details:

Visit Reference Point

The SECBE 2019 Health, Safety and Wellbeing Award is sponsored by Day Aggregates.