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Business

Potential Industrial Action - Friday 6 October

Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC) is preparing for planned industrial action. This is for UNISON members employed by the council.

This is in relation to a pay dispute relating to the pay award for 2023/24. If the issue is not resolved, UNISON intend to take strike action on 6 October and commence an ongoing period of work to rule from Monday 9 October. 

If industrial action does go ahead, we will have to delay green bin and bulky waste collection services on Friday 6 October to allow us to prioritise collecting your household and recycling waste. Garden waste collections that were due on Friday 6 will be moved to Saturday 7 if the action is taken by UNISON.

Most of our services will be delivered as normal, and you can stay up to date with all the latest information about any disruption to services. 

We are the health and safety enforcing authority for a wide range of workplaces and premises including:

  • shops

  • restaurants and cafes

  • takeaways

  • hotels, caravan sites and campsites

  • offices

  • warehouses

  • places of worship

  • hairdressers and beauty therapists

  • tattooing and body piercing

  • tyre and exhaust premises

We have a team of officers who carry out inspections of businesses, investigate complaints and investigate accidents and near misses.

What can officers do?

The law gives a wide range of power to our officers, including:

  • entering premises to carry out their duties

  • carrying out investigations and examinations

  • taking measurements, photographs and samples

  • taking possession of articles and equipment 

  • requiring people to provide information

  • taking statements from people

  • inspecting and copying documents

  • issuing Improvement Notices

  • issuing Prohibition Notices

What action can we take?

If there is a breach of health and safety law, then the officer can take several courses of action, which most likely are:

  • issue an informal warning – this will provide information and advice about  improvements that can be introduced

  • serve an improvement Notice – this is a formal enforcement notice which will detail what is wrong with any procedures and/ or practices, what to do to fix them and will specify the  date by which the improvements must be introduced

  • serve a prohibition notice – this is a formal enforcement notice to deal with a risk of serious personal injury. It requires a work activity or a process to stop immediately and will stay in force until all issues are resolved and the notice is lifted by us

  • prosecution – this is likely to follow non-compliance of an improvement notice or a prohibition notice or after an investigation of a serious accident in the workplace.