Barnet Council is grappling with staff shortages within its Environmental Health team, particularly concerning commercial health and safety. The issue was a key point of discussion during a Licensing and General Purposes Committee meeting on Tuesday, where officials explored the implications of the shortage and potential solutions.
The understaffing raises concerns about the council's ability to conduct proactive health and safety work in the borough. According to the Commercial Environmental Health - Health and Safety Annual Report 2024/2025, the Commercial Environmental Health, Health & Safety Team regulates approximately 17,368 workplaces in Barnet, including offices, shops, warehouses, consumer services, cafes/restaurants and some leisure services. With vacancies in all three posts, these businesses may be affected.
Ellis Smallcombe, Head of Environmental Health Consumer and Public Protection, informed the committee that the team had been subject to a restructure earlier in the year and was carrying a number of vacancies. The team is responsible for investigating health and safety matters in businesses across the borough that do not relate to council employees or buildings. For the 2023/2024 reporting period there was 1 FTE officer to deliver this function.
Ms. Smallcombe noted that the outputs in the annual report show there's room for improvement as we want to be doing more proactive work with health and safety but this has been limited on the staffing situation
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Councillor Caroline Stock inquired whether Middlesex University could provide students to work in the department. Ms. Smallcombe responded that the council had attended one of their open days and met with some of their tutors and students, but that many of the students were already employed. She added, there's a lot of thinking about how we can grow our own how we can support students coming through within the borough from middlesex university
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Councillor Andrea Bilbow OBE raised concerns about the potential for problems given the large population in Barnet. She asked whether the wage structure was correct, and whether that was why the council was not attracting the right people. Ms. Smallcombe responded that there was a lack of people coming through the route of becoming experienced environmental health professionals, and that the private sector offered more attractive salary packages. Councillor Bilbow voiced concerns that staff shortages and holidays could lead to problems with food and commercial premises, stating, i'm just a little bit concerned probably less than you but i'm sure you're concerned as well that if suddenly there was holidays and things like that there's a lot of things going on we have a lot of food premises we have a lot of commercial premises we have a lot of this and i i don't want to hear in the news that obviously we're not attracting the right people
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The Environmental Health team is seeking experienced and qualified Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) who are capable of enforcing health and safety at work legislation.
Councillor Claire Farrier asked whether the plan was to fill the three vacancies in the next three to four months, and Ms. Smallcombe confirmed that was the aim.
During the meeting, Councillor Richard Barnes inquired about a fatality mentioned in the report, and why it was not formally reported. Ms. Smallcombe responded that she may need to take away the question about the form and how it was reported, but that an investigation was underway and she could not share details at that time. She also mentioned that it wasn't reported through the normal route that it should have been.