National Award success for Highland Environmental Health team

The Highland Council’s Environmental Health team have won a special merit award at the prestigious UK-wide Primary Authority Awards in recognition of the partnership working officers have being doing with Boots UK for the last few years.

The award recognises the key work staff have done with Boots UK by acting as the company’s Primary Authority for Health and Safety at Work regulation. This includes providing Boots with expert advice on their policies and procedures and liaising with any local authority that finds problems in any of the Boots UK stores throughout the UK.  This approach is very much promoted across the UK as a cost effective way for both the business and Councils to ensure companies are complying with the law.

Leader of The Highland Council, Councillor Margaret Davidson congratulated the team on their success and said: “Working with Boots UK has been very beneficial for our officers as they have gained valuable experience of working in partnership with a national retailer and built up a close rapport and effective working relationship with the company.

“The Scottish Government is looking to bring in the same approach for devolved legislation in the immediate future as part of its Better Regulation agenda and this award puts the Council at the forefront of this approach and in a good position to act for both local Highland companies and other national companies that operate in our area.”

The work with Boots was started by Area Environmental Health Manager John Lee who recently retired, and is now being taken forward by Gregor MacCormick, Senior EHO, and John Reid, Health & Safety officer.

A Boots Spokesman said: “This award is a fantastic endorsement of the hard work and co-ordination put in to our Primary Authority arrangement over the years. In true partnership style, we’ve all benefitted and learnt from working closely together in pursuit of making Boots UK one of the safest places to work and shop on the High Street. The fact that our model and progress has been recognised nationally as one of the best is something of which we should all be tremendously proud.”

Gregor MacCormick (2nd from right) and John Reid (3rd from right) are pictured receiving their award