The Health and Safety (H&S) Assurance function is responsible for monitoring the appointed Principal Contractors and Elected Clients against key criteria including:

• Legislation and associated best practice guidance
• Approved and Joint Codes of Practice
• The Works Information (contractual arrangements) document
• Crossrail policies and processes

Over 100 audits are undertaken each year to help ensure that Principal Contractors are constantly performing to the highest possible standard. The H&S Assurance function works closely with the Crossrail Internal Audit function and follows Crossrail’s Audit Procedure. This includes developing an audit schedule, identifying additional areas for assessment ensuring a consistent level of auditor competence, producing audit reports, recording significant audit findings and also tracking the progress of Corrective Action Requests (CARs).

The H&S Assurance Team devises an audit plan each year, in collaboration with the Internal Audit function, Project Managers, other H&S Managers and the H&S Director. This ensures that the audit plan focusses on appropriate risks (as identified by HSPI, incident trends etc.), key pieces of legislation (including legislative updates) and targeted areas of industry-wide and Crossrail-specific H&S risks. A key element of the audit and assurance programme has been the collaborative approach taken by the H&S Assurance team in carrying out the audits and supporting the contractors to resolve any issues.  Lessons learned around the collaborative approach to audit and the assurance assessment regime are shared in the learning legacy.

As an outcome of the audits, two best practice guides were created on Construction Railways Operations and Construction Fire Safety.

The H&S Assurance Team ensures that all construction projects are designed, planned, operated and handed over in a manner that considers Health and Safety at all stages and in a manner that complies with the Construction Design Management (CDM) regulations: 2015. A key part of Crossrail’s CDM Strategy has been the successful use of Elected Clients and the logic and implementation of this process is captured in the learning legacy for use by other projects considering using Elected Clients. Additionally the complexity of a multi-site programme and the implications for CDM arrangements are reviewed in the multi-site arrangements learning legacy paper.

In addition to the above, the H&S Assurance Team is in regular liaison with external agencies and has seconded members of staff from the London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police in the team to ensure that specific expertise is provided in the areas of emergency response and business continuity. This is covered in the Emergency Services Liaison section.