Campaigning Together For Improved Health & Safety
As a result of Community’s on-going campaign to improve safety standards in the betting industry, you may be aware that Government Ministers called a roundtable of key industry stakeholders; including local authorities, Community and the employers; to look at this issue.
A result of the roundtable was the launch in March this year of the SafeBet Alliance minimum safety standards document in the Greater London area,supported by the industry and in particular by the big three. Whilst Community believes that the standards don’t go far enough, and that the narrow focus around robberies needed widening, it is a welcomed first step and recognition by the industry that safety needs to be improved and prioritised.
The roundtable met again in July to discuss widening the remit of the standards and to look at a number of issues including making the standards cover all of the UK, to include other forms of violence and abuse together with mechanisms to monitor progress. Community are calling for the document to be strengthened on a number of key areas such as lone person working and training. The key stakeholders will need to submit a progress report to Government Ministers in September and again in March 2010.
Whilst the campaign has come a long way since Community launched its video on safety in the betting industry, we still have a long way to go. In order to keep up the pressure it is important that we understand how widely the London SafeBet Alliance standards are being adopted and continue to build a national picture of the prevalence of abuse and violence in UK betting shops.
Community does not believe the SafeBet standards have made an impact, we want to hear from you, if you work in a London shop and would like to get involved in our safety campaign, please contact Community Union on0800 834 640.
Community will keep betting shop members informed of the development of the UK wide standards. Community’s minimum standards are below.
Get active, get involved – together we can make a difference!