LTB397/17 Royal Mail Group (RMG) Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Standard 2.7 “Management of Dog Attack Risks

No. 397/2017

11 July 2017

Our Ref: P18/17

Royal Mail Group (RMG) Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Standard 2.7 “Management of Dog Attack Risks”:

To: All Branches

Dear Colleagues,

This LTB is to raise awareness amongst ASRs and Regional Health and Safety Forums of Royal Mail Group (RMG) Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Management System Standard 2.7 “Management of Dog Attack Risks”. The Health Safety & Environment Department wishes to raise awareness of the requirements of the Safety Standard and ensure compliance as we come to the end of the 2017 RMG/CWU Dog Awareness Week.

The Standard applies across the whole of RMG and sets out the arrangements for addressing and managing the risks of dog attacks on collections and delivery members. Inherent in the standard is the belief that workers should be able to undertake their work without being subject to dog attacks. As a result it is agreed that the approach taken to manage the risk will be focused on prevention of dog attacks with the arrangements for handling an attack considered as necessary but a secondary approach to the overall approach.

Managers of Collections and Delivery will ensure that the appropriate Workplace Offsite Risk Assessment (E.g. WRAP) is completed and up to date for all duties under their control (See SHE Standard 2.4 – Off Site Workplace Risk Assessment).

The RMG SHE Team will maintain a procedure for the management of Dog Attack Risks. These are maintained in the Management of Dog Attack Risk Guidance (Appendix 1).

All incidents will be recorded using the Dog Attack Risk Template DART’ Form (Appendix 2).

All incidents will be considered by the SHE Team for Private Prosecution’ using the Dog Attack Report Programme (DARP) where the Police and CPS decide not to prosecute. To date around 12 such cases of dog attacks ending in CWU Members being attacked and injured have been taken via this route and all have successfully ended in the dog owner being prosecuted.

There is a Dog Attack Risk Control Matrix at Appendix 3 to provide guidance on suitable control measures.

The standard sets out Royal Mail’s Zero Tolerance Approach to significant dog risks and confirms that under circumstances where the risk of a dog attack is unacceptably high, managers are supported in suspending deliveries or collections to the relevant premises or locations until such time as the risk has been controlled appropriately or eliminated.

It’s up to every collections and delivery worker to ensure that dog-related information for their duty is up to date and to adopt the control measures specified by their manager.

CWU ASRs will be fully involved and consulted on Walk Risk Assessments completion and in discussions on risk levels and the development and deployment of appropriate control measures to reduce and control the risk of dog attacks. Managers will monitor and review delivery and collection risk controls jointly with the ASR and where a Dog Attack takes place the manager will provide a copy of the Dog Attack Report Template Form to the ASR.

The Standard document and Guidance cover:- Routine Monitoring, Incident Investigation, Post Incident Actions, Controls, Analysis, Prosecutions and Private Prosecutions, Criminal and Civil Prosecutions, Communications and Auditing with the Guidance Document going into greater detail and it includes the DART Report Form.

This standard sets out the agreed Royal Mail policy approach which in summary is:-

  • “Royal Mail Has a Zero Tolerance Approach To Dog Attacks”
  • “Delivery and Collections Staff are supported in not completing a delivery or collection to premises where they find, as a result of their own assessment, on arrival at the premises that there is an unacceptable risk of a dog attack.”
  • “At the earliest opportunity, exposure to a dog threat or dog attack incident should be reported to the Manager”
  • Where there are Dog Attack Risk issues on a duty the manager must consult the CWU ASR to discuss the level of risk and the development and deployment of control measures.
  • Once measures are deployed they must remain in place as long as required and they must be monitored and regularly reviewed with the CWU ASR.
  • When a Dog Attack takes place the Unit Manager must share a copy of the DART’ Report form with the CWU ASR and the victim.

IMPORTANT:

Too many dog attacks and dog incident near misses go unreported and that situation is unhelpful in many respects. THE MESSAGE TO MEMBERS IS TO REPORT ALL DOG INCIDENTS NO MATTER HOW MINOR. IT COULD BE FAR WORSE NEXT TIME!

Attachments:

RMG SHEStandard 2.7 “Management of Dog Attack Risks”.

RMG SHEStandard 2.7 “Management of Dog Attack Risks” – Guidance.

RMG StaySafe’ Dog Attack Risk Control Matrix (App3).

DART’ Report Form (App2)

Yours sincerely

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer