What are Health and Safety inspections and audits?

What is the difference between an inspection and an audit?

A Health and Safety inspection is undertaken to identify Health and Safety hazards and changes to physical locations, equipment, machinery or processes that could affect safety.

A Health and Safety audit is an evaluation of the effectiveness of a procedure or activity to determine if the health and safety arrangements are working as planned. The audit will identify any weaknesses and will review documentation to ensure there is appropriate record keeping in place.

Health and Safety audits are less frequent and can have greater scope than a Health and Safety inspection and can extend over a number of weeks. Health and Safety inspections may take minutes or a number of hours at most to complete, dependent on the subject matter of the inspection.

Who undertakes inspections?

Health and Safety inspections can be undertaken by any management team or staff group where they are deemed appropriate and relevant to the safety of staff and others.

For example workshop machinery or laboratory equipment should always be visually inspected before use, and for some more hazardous machinery or equipment these daily inspections can be recorded. Also local management can introduce workplace inspections of areas under their control to ensure the workspaces are clean and without risks to Health and Safety.

Health and Safety do undertake a series of scheduled inspections of workplaces throughout the year. Trades Union and other staff representatives can accompany these inspections.

If you are interested to accompany these inspection visits contact safety@northampton.ac.uk

Who conducts audits?

An Audit Plan for Health and Safety is prepared annually by Health and Safety and is approved by the University Health Safety and Security Committee, who oversees the delivery of any audit actions raised.

Health and Safety Audits may be conducted using the University's own Health and Safety team, or by using external specialists or consultancies where a particular expertise is required.

When do inspections take place?

Inspections will nearly always be scheduled to take place at regular intervals, for example daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. Check with your line management for any local inspection routines or alternatively information will be provided on scheduled Health and Safety inspections on the 'Safety Updates' link on this site.

Health and Safety undertake regular workplace health and safety inspections of University premises. If you're interested to contribute to, attend or accompany a Health and Safety inspection, consult the 'Safety Updates' page for the dates and locations of the next inspections.