Democracy Spraffa

Water Safety

North Lanarkshire Council · 19 September 2022
Back to Community Safety Partnership Forum — 19 September 2022 and its agenda

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North Lanarkshire Council
Report
Community Safety Partnership Forum 
Does this report require to be approved? ☐ Yes   ☒ No
Ref SP/MC Date Click here to enter a date. 
Water Safety Report 
From  Stephen Penman, Head of Strategic Communication  
E-mail costellom@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 07725289551 
1. Background 
1.1 PAWS is a multi-agency approach to improving water safety that encompasses the
knowledge and experience of individuals and organisations in our communities that best
understand, and can manage, risks in and around water in the area.
It is a Partnership of equals sharing the responsibility for identifying and addressing water
safety risks in the area.
PAWS looks at three aspects of water safety:
 Prevention
Executive Summary 
Forum to understand the work ongoing in relation to the preparation of a Partnership
Approach to Water Safety (PAWS) document for North Lanarkshire and agree that a
finalised document will be presented at a future meeting. 
Recommendations 
It is recommended that the Community Safety Partnership Forum: 
Recognise the partnership work undertaken to date and agree to participate in further
consultation as the work on the document progresses. 
The Plan for North Lanarkshire
Priority  Improve the health and wellbeing of our communities
Ambition statement (17) Ensure we keep our environment clean, safe, and attractive

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Pro-active activities that reduce the likelihood of a water emergency occurring by raising
awareness of safety issues, and by educating the public on how to be safe in and around
water in our communities.
 Improved Response
Effective response to water emergency incidents through multi-agency exercises and
training the public how to react to incidents safely.
 Review
Implementation of the Drowning & Incident Review (DIR) after significant incidents to
ensure learning from water emergency incidents to gain an understanding of the
contributory factors and make interventions that may prevent similar events from
occurring.
Water safety is a complicated subject that will require the input and co-operation of many
organisations and individuals to address.  PAWS provides a clear framework to assist in
this area of partnership working. 
2. Report 
Lanarkshire PAWS Group 
2.1 A Lanarkshire PAWS Group has been set up and has to date had 2 meetings. 
Members of the group include:- 
 Local Authority
 Scottish Fire and Rescue
 Police Scotland
 Water Safety Scotland
 Scottish canals 
2.2 A draft document has been created in line with best practice and this document, on
completion of the draft, will be shared more widely as part of local consultation.  The
document has been shared with council colleagues, Police Scotland and SFRS to date
and wider partners will be consulted in due course. 
2.3 The PAWS Group aims to build upon existing good practices currently undertaken by
partner agencies across NL and to allocate responsibilities in a clear framework
agreeable to all agencies concerned and formalise them into agreed actions that are
reported into the Community Planning Partnership. This co-ordinated and proactive
approach will assist in the delivery of emergency response to, and education in the
prevention of water emergency incidents and is consistent with the targets of
Scotland’s Drowning Prevention Strategy 
2.4 A pan Lanarkshire approach has been considered best practice and this has been the
approach taken initially to the development of the PAWS and colleagues from South
Lanarkshire have engaged initially in the project and further work will be undertaken in
relation to progressing this approach

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3. Measures of success 
3.1  Creation of a Partnership Approach to Water Safety document and a representative
group to promote this area of work following consultation with all partners as required
4. Supporting documentation 
4.1 N/A 
Stephen Penman
Head of Strategic Communication

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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 
5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty
Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public
Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website?
https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer-
scotland-duty-impact-assessments
Yes ☐ No ☐
5.2 Financial impact
Does the report contain any financial impacts?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with
Financial Solutions?
Yes ☐ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.3 HR policy impact 
Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People
and Organisational Development?
Yes ☐ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.4 Legal impact
Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory
considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal
and Democratic Solutions?
Yes ☐ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.5 Data protection impact 
Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal
data?  
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data
subject?
Yes ☐ No ☐
If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e-
mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk 
Yes ☐ No ☐
5.6 Technology / Digital impact
Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital
transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or
connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact?

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Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been
carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group
(EAGG)? 
Yes ☐ No ☐
5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact
Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any
environmental or carbon matters?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 
5.8 Communications impact
Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s
communications activities?
Yes ☒ No ☐
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact?
Work has been ongoing with Corporate Communications throughout the
development of the PAWS approach and will continue through the consultation and
engagement process 
5.9 Risk impact
Is there a risk impact?
Yes ☐ No ☒
If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts,
highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service
or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed?