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Element IA3: Measuring & Reviewing Health & Safety Performance.

Learning outcomes.

On completion of this element, candidates should be able to:

1. Explain the purpose of performance measurement in relation to health and safety objec-tives and arrangements.

2. Explain the need for, and the objectives and limitations of, health and safety monitoring systems.

3. Describe the variety of monitoring and measuring techniques. 4. Explain the requirements for reviewing health and safety performance.

Minimum hours of tuition: 6 hours.

1.0 Purpose of Performance Measurement.

This section provides a description of the assessment of the effectiveness and appropriateness of health and safety objectives and arrangements, including control measures.

The health and safety policy statement is where managing health and safety in the workplace begins. It lays out the way in which health and safety in the organisation is managed. It is a unique document that shows who does what, and when and how they do it.

If you have five or more employees you will need to have a written health and safety policy statement. This should set out how you manage health and safety in your organisation.

You must carry out a risk assessment to identify any risks and then make decisions on how to manage such risks, so far as is reasonably practicable, to comply with health and safety law.

If you employ five or more employees, you must record:

the significant findings of the assessment; and any group of employees identified by it as being especially at risk.

This would then form part of the general policy of your business on how you deal with health and safety at work, and the organisation and arrangements you have for putting that policy into practice.

The policy should be specific to your business, and should be clear about arrangements and organisation for health and safety at work.

It should influence all your activities, including the selection of people, equipment and materials, the way work is done and how you design goods and services.

A written statement of the policy and the organisation and arrangements for implementing and monitoring it shows your staff, and anyone else, that hazards have been identified and risks as-sessed, eliminated or controlled."

Objectives

Health and safety policy statements should state their main objectives, e.g.

(a) Commit to operating the business in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and all applicable regulations made under the Act, 'so far as reasonably practicable'.

(b) Specify that health and safety are management responsibilities, ranking equally with respon-sibilities for production, sales, costs, and similar matters.

(c) Indicate that it is the duty of management to see that everything reasonably practicable is

done to prevent personal injury in the processes of production, and in the design, construction and operation of all plant, machinery and equipment, and to maintain a safe and healthy place of work.

(d) Indicate that it is the duty of all employees to act responsibly, and to do everything they can to prevent injury to themselves and fellow workers. Although the implementation of policy is a management responsibility, it will rely heavily on the co-operation of those who actually produce the goods and take the risks.

(e) Identify the main board director or managing board director (or directors) who have prime responsibility for health and safety, in order to make the commitment of the board precise, and provide points of reference for any manager who is faced with a conflict between the demands of safety and the demands of production.

(f) Be dated so as to ensure that it is periodically revised in the light of current conditions, and be signed by the chairman, managing director, chief executive, or whoever speaks for the organisa-tion at the highest level and with the most authority on all matters of general concern.

(g) Clearly state how and by whom its operation is to be monitored. Organisation

This outlines the chain of command in terms of health and safety management.

Who is responsible to whom and for what? How is the accountability fixed so as to ensure that delegated responsibilities are under-

taken? How is the policy implementation monitored?

Other organisational features should include:

individual job descriptions having a safety content; details of specific safety responsibilities; the role and function of safety committee(s); the role and function of safety representatives; a management chart clearly showing the lines of responsibility and accountability in

terms of health and safety management.

The competent person who is to assist with compliance with health and safety requirements should also be included. Arrangements

This part of the policy deals with the practical arrangements by which the policy will be effec-tively implemented. These include:

safety training; safe systems of work; environmental control; safe place of work; machine/area guarding; housekeeping; safe plant and equipment; noise control; radiation safety; dust control; use of toxic materials; internal communication/participation; utilisation of safety committee(s) and safety representatives;

fire safety and prevention; medical facilities and welfare; maintenance of records; accident reporting and investigation; emergency procedures; and workplace monitoring.

It is vital to establish safe and healthy systems of work designed to counteract the identified risks within a business. The following aspects should be used as a guide when preparing ar-rangements for health and safety at work:

(a) The provision of health and safety performance criteria for articles, and product safety data for substances, prior to purchase.

(b) The provision of specific instructions for using machines, for maintaining safety systems, and for the control of health hazards.

(c) The development of specific health and safety training for all employees.

(d) The undertaking of medical examinations and biological monitoring.

(e) The provision of suitable protective equipment.

(f) The development and utilisation of permit-to-work systems.

(g) The provision of first-aid/emergency procedures, including aspects of fire safety/prevention.

(h ) The provision of written procedures in respect of contractors and visitors.

(i) The formulation of written safe systems of work for use by all levels of management and workforce.

Other matters that might also be referred to include the arrangements for compliance with the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 Reg 3 (risk assessments) and the disciplinary measures consequent upon a breach of the policy. Control Measures

The aim of health and safety management is to prevent hazards and risks causing injury and ill-health to employees or others. Adequate control measures must be provided and maintained in order to achieve this aim. Control measures include machine guards, local exhaust ventilation, safe systems of work, instructions and training etc.

1.1 Outline of the Making of Recommendations for Review of the Current Management Systems.

Management systems must be reviewed to ensure they are current and effective for their in-tended purpose. The Health and Safety Executive in their HSG65 document give the following advice:

Reviewing is the process of making judgements about the adequacy of performance and taking decisions about the nature and timing of the actions necessary to remedy deficiencies.

Organisations need to have feedback to see if the health and safety management system is working effectively as designed. The main sources of information come from measuring activi-ties and from audits of the Risk Control Systems and workplace precautions. Other internal and external influences include de-layering, new legislation or changes in current good practice.

Any of these can result in redesign or amendment of any parts of the health and safety man-agement system, or a change in overall direction or objectives. Suitable performance standards

should be established to identify the responsibilities, timing and systems involved.

Feeding information on success and failure back into the system is an essential element in mo-tivating employees to maintain and improve performance. Successful organisations emphasise positive reinforcement and concentrate on encouraging progress on those indicators which demonstrate improvements in risk control.

The aims of the review process reflect the objectives of the planning process. Reviews will need to examine:

the operation and maintenance of the system as designed; the design, development and installation of the health and safety management system in

changing circumstances.

Reviewing should be a continuous process, undertaken at different levels within the organisa-tion. It includes responses:

by first-line supervisors or other managers to remedy failures to implement workplace precautions which they observe in the course of routine activities;

to remedy sub-standard performance identified by active and reactive monitoring; to the assessment of plans at individual, departmental, site, group or organisational

level; to the results of audits.

Review plans may include:

monthly reviews of individuals, supervisors or sections; three-monthly reviews of departments; annual reviews of sites or of the organisation as a whole.

Organisations should decide on the frequency of the reviews at each level and devise reviewing activities to suit the measuring and auditing activities. In all reviewing activity the result should be specific remedial actions which:

establish who is responsible for implementation; set deadlines for completion.

These actions form the basis of effective follow-up, which should be closely monitored. The speed and nature of response to any situation should be determined by the degree of risk in-volved and the availability of resources.

Reviewing demands the exercise of good judgement, and people responsible for reviewing may need specific training to achieve competence in this type of task.

Key performance indicators for reviewing overall performance can include:

assessment of the degree of compliance with health and safety system requirements; identification of areas where the health and safety system is absent or inadequate (those

areas where further action is necessary to develop the total health and safety manage-ment system);

assessment of the achievement of specific objectives and plans; accident, ill-health and incident data accompanied by analysis of both the immediate and

underlying causes, trends and common features.

These indicators are consistent with the development of a positive health and safety culture. They emphasise achievement and success rather than merely measuring failure by looking only at accident data.

Organisations may also 'benchmark' their performance against other organisations by compar-ing:

accident rates with those organisations in the same industry which use similar business processes and experience similar risks;

management practices and techniques with other organisations in any industry to pro-vide a different perspective and new insights on health and safety management systems.

Question 1

Which of the following are key performance indicators for reviewing overall performance?

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Assessment of the degree of compliance with health and safety system requirements

Response 1:

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Answer 2: Identification of areas where the health and safety system is absent or inadequate (those areas where further action is necessary to develop the total health and safety management system)

Response 2:

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Answer 3: Assessment of the achievement of specific objectives and plans

Response 3:

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Answer 4: Accident, ill-health and incident data accompanied by analysis of both the immediate and underlying causes, trends and common features.

Response 4:

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2.0 Monitoring Systems.

This section will provide an explanation of:

The need for a range of both active and reactive measures to determine whether objec-tives have been met.

The limitations of placing reliance on accident and ill-health data as a performance measure.

The objectives of active monitoring. To check that health and safety plans have been implemented, and to monitor the extent

of compliance with the organisation's systems/procedures and legislative/technical stan-dards.

The objectives of reactive monitoring. To analyse data relating to accidents, ill-health and other loss-causing events.

Organisations need to measure what they are doing to implement their health and safety policy, to assess how effectively they are controlling risks and how well they are developing a positive

health and safety culture.

A low accident rate, even over a period of years, is no guarantee that risks are being effectively controlled and will not lead to injuries, ill-health or loss in the future.

This is particularly true in organisations where there is a low probability of accidents, but where major hazards are present. Here, the historical record can be an unreliable or even deceptive indicator of safety performance.

Like planning, monitoring health and safety performance against pre-determined plans and standards should be a line management responsibility.

Monitoring also reinforces management's commitment to health and safety objectives in gen-eral, and helps in developing a positive health and safety culture by rewarding positive work done to control risk.

Two types of system are required:

active systems which monitor the design, development, installation and operation of management arrangements, Risk Control Systems and workplace precautions;

reactive systems which monitor accidents, ill-health, incidents and other evidence of de-ficient health and safety performance.

Organisations need to have procedures to allow them to collect the information to investigate adequately the causes of substandard performance.

The limitations of placing reliance on accident and ill-health data as a performance measure.

Types of Accident and Incident Data.

Accident includes any undesired circumstances that give rise to ill-health or injury, damage to property etc.

Incident includes all undesired circumstances that could cause accidents.

The use of such data (including ill-health data) is a valuable management tool that helps to:

measure whether performance is improving or deteriorating using trend analysis; make comparisons; draw lessons from the data – epidemiological analysis.

However, there are limitations on these data, which can be set out follows:

Accident data are the result of accidents that happened in the past, sometimes a consid-erable time ago, so it can be said that they are not up-to-date.

Occupational diseases are quite rare because their long-term effects cannot be easily measured or recorded.

The objectives of active monitoring.

Active monitoring gives an organisation feedback on its performance before an accident, inci-dent or ill-health. It includes monitoring the achievement of specific plans and objectives, the operation of the health and safety management system, and compliance with performance standards. This provides a firm basis for decisions about improvements in risk control and the health and safety management system. There are additional benefits, however.

Active monitoring measures success and reinforces positive achievement by rewarding good work, rather than penalising failure after the event. Such reinforcement can increase motivation to achieve continued improvement.

Organisations need to decide how to allocate responsibilities for monitoring at different levels in the management chain, and what level of detail is appropriate. The decisions will reflect the or-ganisation's structure. Managers should be given the responsibility for monitoring the achieve-

ment of objectives, and compliance with standards for which they and their subordinates are responsible.

Managers and supervisors responsible for direct implementation of standards should monitor compliance in detail. Above this immediate level of control, monitoring needs to be more selec-tive but should provide assurance that adequate first-line monitoring is taking place.

This should reflect not only the quantity but also the quality of subordinates' monitoring activity. Multi-site organisations need to satisfy themselves that different 'satellites' are meeting corpo-rate plans and objectives as well as controlling risks. There need to be performance standards for managers to indicate how they will monitor.

The various forms and levels of active monitoring include:

routine procedures to monitor specific objectives, e.g quarterly or monthly reports or re-turns;

periodic examination of documents to check that systems relating to the promotion of the health and safety culture are complied with. One example might be the way in which suitable objectives have been established for each manager, regular review of perform-ance, assessment and recording of training needs and delivery of suitable training;

the systematic inspection of premises, plant and equipment by supervisors, maintenance staff, management, safety representatives or other employees to ensure the continued effective operation of workplace precautions;

environmental monitoring and health surveillance to check on the effectiveness of health control measures, and to detect early signs of harm to health;

systematic direct observation of work and behaviour by first-line supervisors to assess compliance with Risk Control Systems and associated procedures and rules, particularly those directly concerned with risk control;

the operation of audit systems; consideration of regular reports on health and safety performance by the board of direc-

tors.

The key to effective active monitoring is the quality of the plans, performance standards and specifications. These provide the yardstick against which performance can be measured.

Monitoring is used to check that health and safety plans have been implemented and to monitor the extent of compliance with the organisation's systems/procedures and legislative/technical standards.

Performance standards are needed to identify the contribution that people make to operating the health and safety management system.

Standards for people at all levels are needed to ensure:

the effective design, development and installation of the health and safety management system;

the consistent implementation and improvement of the health and safety management system, i.e. the management arrangements, Risk Control Systems and workplace pre-cautions; and

that positive rewards can be provided for individuals in recognition of the effort put into accident and ill-health prevention.

Performance standards are the foundation for a positive health and safety culture. At the plan-ning stage, decisions are needed about the appropriate standards to match the needs of the business and the health and safety management system.

Performance standards could cover the following:

policy formulation and development;

methods of accountability; health and safety committee and similar consultation meetings; involvement of people in risk assessments and writing procedures; collection and dissemination of information from external sources; the involvement of senior managers in safety tours and accident and incident investiga-

tions; preparation of health and safety documentation, performance standards, rules and pro-

cedures; health and safety plans and objectives; the risk assessment process; implementation of RCSs and workplace precautions; the active monitoring arrangements including inspections; the accident and incident reporting and investigation system; audit and review.

Prioritising health and safety activities.

Systems of assessing relative hazard and risk can contribute to decisions about priorities. They are also a useful aid to answering questions of importance and urgency arising at other stages in the planning and implementation of a health and safety management system, for example:

Systems of assessing relative hazard and risk can contribute to decisions about priorities. They are also a useful aid to answering questions of importance and urgency arising at other stages in the planning and implementation of a health and safety management system, for example:

prioritising different health and safety objectives; deciding on the hazard profile of the business to reveal those areas where more robust

and reliable workplace precautions and RCSs will be needed; deciding monitoring priorities; establishing priorities for training and improving levels of competence; what, if any, immediate action is needed to prevent further injury following an accident; what, if any, immediate action is necessary to prevent injury following an incident or the

discovery of a hazard; when reviewing the results of monitoring activities and the results of injury, ill-health and

incident investigations; deciding the extent of the resources needed, and the speed of the response which

should be made following a particular accident or incident.

While there is no general formula for rating hazards and risks, several techniques can help in decision-making. These differ from the detailed risk assessments needed to establish workplace precautions to satisfy legal standards.

The techniques involve a means of ranking hazards and risks. Some systems rank hazards, others rank risks. Assessing relative risk involves some means of estimating the likelihood of occurrence and the severity of a hazard.

A simple form of risk estimation is described below to illustrate the general principles.

The objectives of reactive monitoring to analyse data relating to accidents, ill-health and other loss causing events

Reactive systems, by definition, are triggered after an event and include identifying and report-ing:

injuries and cases of ill-health (including monitoring of sickness absence records), other losses, such as damage to property, incidents, including those with the potential to cause injury, ill-health or loss; hazards;

weakness or omissions in performance standards.

Each of the above provides opportunities for an organisation to check performance, learn from mistakes, and improve the health and safety management system and risk control. In certain cases, it must send a report of the circumstances and causes to the appropriate enforcing au-thority. Statutorily-appointed safety representatives are entitled to investigate.

Events also contribute to the 'corporate memory'. Information gathered from investigations is a useful way to reinforce key health and safety messages. Common features or trends can be discussed with the workforce, particularly safety representatives. Employees can identify jobs or activities which cause the greatest number of injuries, where remedial action may be most bene-ficial.

Investigations may also provide valuable information in the event of an insurance claim or legal action.

Collecting information on serious injuries and ill-health should not present major problems for most organisations, but learning about minor injuries, other losses, incidents and hazards can prove more challenging. Accurate reporting can be promoted by:

training which clarifies the underlying objectives and reasons for identifying such events; a culture which emphasises an observant and responsible approach and the importance

of having systems of control in place before harm occurs; open, honest communication in a just environment, rather than a tendency merely to al-

locate 'blame'; cross-referencing and checking first-aid treatments, health records, maintenance or fire

reports and insurance claims to identify any otherwise unreported events.

2.1 The Difference Between Active/Reactive, Objective/Subjective & Qualitative/Quantitative.

WHY MEASURE PERFORMANCE?

Introduction. "You can't manage what you can't measure" - Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Measurement is an accepted part of the 'plan-do-check-act' management process. Measuring performance is as much part of a health and safety management system as financial, production or service delivery management. Active Performance Measures - systems that monitor the fulfilment of objectives and the extent of change with standards. Reactive Performance Measures - systems that monitor accidents, ill-health, incidents and other evidence of insufficient health and safety performance.

Objective Performance Measures - the goal of objective measurement is to produce a reference standard common currency for the exchange of quantitative value, so that all research and prac-tice relevant to a particular variable can be conducted in uniform terms. Objective measurement can be achieved and maintained, employing a wide variety of approaches and methods. Objec-tive measurement operates within the research traditions of fundamental measurement theory, item response theory and latent trait theory.

Subjective measurements are useful for quantifying elements of product/service usage that cannot be directly measured through objective means.

Measuring failure - reactive monitoring. Failures in risk control also need to be measured (reactive monitoring), to provide opportunities for organisations to check performance, learn from failures and improve the health and safety management system. Reactive monitoring arrangements include systems to identify and report:

• injuries and work-related ill-health; • other losses such as damage to property; • incidents, including those with the potential to cause injury, ill-health or loss; • hazards, faults and weaknesses or • omissions in performance standards and systems.

Guidance on investigating these events is outside the scope of this guidance but investigations should: • establish what happened; • identify the reasons for substandard performance; • identify the underlying failures in the health and safety management system; • learn from events, prevent recurrences and • satisfy legal and reporting requirements.

The reactive monitoring system should answer the following questions: • Are failures occurring (injuries/ill-health/loss/incidents)? • Where are they occurring? • What is the nature of the failures? • How serious are they? • What were the potential consequences? • What are the reasons for the failures? • What are the costs? • What improvements in the health and safety management system are required? • How do all the above points vary with time? • Are we getting better/worse?

Measuring progress with plans and objectives. One of the key outputs of the planning process is plans and objectives to develop, maintain and improve the health and safety management system. The various plans across the different parts of an organisation need to be aligned to meet the organisation's overall aims, and to provide a coherent approach to effective risk control. The overall goals, set at the highest level in the organisation, need to be put into effect by a se-ries of linked plans and objectives. These should cascade down the various levels within the organisation. A prerequisite of effective health and safety plans and objectives is that they should be SMART, i.e. • Specific; • Measurable; • Attainable; • Realistic/Relevant; and • Time bound.

So the first check in the measurement process is whether plans and objectives meet this test. Measuring progress with plans and objectives is facilitated by defining who does what, when and with what result. This means that regular checks on progress can be made at appropriate intervals against a defined performance standard. These checks need to take place at successive levels within the organisation at corporate, site, local and individual level, reflecting the appropriate hierarchical structure of the organisation.

At individual level, the information gathering may form part of a performance appraisal system, which holds people accountable for their health and safety responsibilities and rewards them appropriately. Measuring progress with plans and objectives provides a useful input to reporting health and safety performance at various levels within the organisation.

An important part of the measurement process is to monitor compliance with remedial actions where areas for improvement have been identified. These actions can arise from audits as well as active and reactive monitoring.

Measuring management arrangements and risk control systems. In many organisations, their health and safety management system has evolved over time, rather than being designed from first principles. This contrasts with the organisation's physical processes or production processes, where careful and systematic consideration will have been given to ensure they are designed to deliver the desired outcomes.

The same discipline needs to be applied to management arrangements and risk control sys-tems. The performance measurement system must include checks on whether the particular management arrangement (e.g. the accident investigation system), or risk control system (e.g. the system to control contractors) has the capability to deliver the required outcome and is fit for purpose. In practice, this information might be collected by audit, or a review of arrangements and sys-tems which are already in place. Unless the performance measurement system includes these checks, there will be a natural limit on the performance of the health and safety management system.

Because of the limitations in its original design, there will be no guarantee that the desired out-comes will be achieved. There are essentially two aspects to consider: (a) is there a system in place? and (b) Is the system 'technically adequate' for the required application?

(a) To establish that a system is in place means checking that there is a plan do-check-act process so that: • clear scope and objectives are defined for the outcome, i.e. what the system is intended to de-liver; • clear responsibilities are assigned to individuals within the system, for which they are held ac-countable; • the competencies of people operating the system are defined; people who are expected to im-plement the system have had the opportunity to provide input to its design; • there are procedures which define how the system is to be implemented and the performance standards expected; • the methods of monitoring compliance and effectiveness of the system are defined; • there are arrangements for reviewing the design and operation of the system, taking appropri-ate action to correct deficiencies and for continual improvement; and adequate resources are provided to operate the system effectively.

(b) The presence of the plan-do-check-act elements alone is not sufficient.

The system needs to be 'technically adequate' or fit for purpose relative to the application. For example, arrangements for investigating accidents will be of limited value if the investigation system does not identify root causes of the accident. Similarly a system aimed at controlling the risks associated with managing change on a chemi-cal plant will be of limited value if the only changes included are engineering or material

changes, but changes such as personnel, organisational structure, instrumentation or recipe are not included.

The yardsticks for checking 'technical adequacy' are relevant legal requirements and best prac-tice, including the consideration of human factors issues.

Question 2

Why is the use of accident/incident data (including ill-health data) a valuable management tool?

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Measure whether performance is improving or deteriorating using trend analysis

Response 1:

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Answer 2: Make comparisons

Response 2:

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Answer 3: Draw lessons from the data – epidemiological analysis.

Response 3:

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Question 3

Which type of systems monitor accidents, ill-health, incidents and other evidence of deficient health and safety performance?

Multiple Choice

Answer 1: Active systems

Response 1:

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Answer 2: Reactive systems

Response 2:

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Question 4

Accurate accident/incident reporting can be promoted by which means:

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Training which clarifies the underlying objectives and reasons for identifying such events

Response 1:

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Answer 2: A culture which emphasises an observant and responsible approach and the importance of having systems of control in place before harm occurs

Response 2:

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Answer 3: Open, honest communication in a just environment, rather than a tendency merely to allocate 'blame'

Response 3:

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3.0 Monitoring & Measurement Techniques.

This section will provide definitions of health and safety audits, workplace inspections, safety tours, safety sampling and safety surveys.

Health and safety audits.

The organisation learns from all relevant experience and applies the lessons. There is a sys-tematic review of performance based on data from monitoring and from independent audits of the whole health and safety management system. These form the basis of self regulation and of complying with sections 2 to 6 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSW Act) and other relevant statutory provisions. There is a strong commitment to continuous improvement involving the constant development of policies, systems and techniques of risk control. Perform-ance is assessed by:

-internal reference to key performance indicators; and external comparison with the perform-ance of business competitors and best practice, irrespective of employment sector.

What are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) ?

Businesses use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress toward specific health and safety goals or simply to monitor trends associated with corporate and facility activities or special projects. KPIs are used as a means to collect data and communicate trends, which can then be used to indicate where further improvements and resources are required.

KPIs that represent what has already happened are referred to as “lagging indicators.” Lagging indicators are commonly used in company communications to provide an overview of perform-ance, such as the tracking of injury statistics, exposure incidents, and regulatory fines. “Leading indicators” are more predictive of future performance results. They are viewed as proactive measurements.

These might include, among other things: • Number of audits or inspections performed. • Number and types of findings and observations. • Timeframe required to close action items. • Training completed. • Near miss incidents. • Timely preventive maintenance tasks performed. • Safety committee meetings. In either case, KPIs must be quantifiable and tied to specific targets.

Selecting KPIs Which KPIs are best for a particular organization depends on several factors: • Where is the organization today with respect to health and safety performance? • Where does the organization want to be tomorrow? • Who receives the KPI data and what do they do with it?

• How are KPIs and the conclusions that are drawn from the KPIs communicated to others?

To develop meaningful KPIs, health and safety managers first need to understand the safety risks of their operations, evaluate the systems that are in place to manage risk, and understand the company’s business plan and culture. From there health and safety managers can decide where they would like the organization to be in the short and long term. It’s great to be recog-nized as one of the industry leaders in the area of safety, but if the organization has a reactive or emerging culture, it might want to set a short-term goal of ensuring that it is in compliance with applicable legal requirements.

Workplace inspections.

Routine monitoring of the basic provisions for Health and Safety within the organisation by inter-nal personnel, usually using a checklist to ensure consistency of inspections. Inspections cover items such as fire extinguishers, fire doors, access/egress, lighting etc. but the content of the checklist will vary according to the activities taking place in any location, and the findings of relevant risk assessments.

Safety tours.

A safety tour is an unscheduled examination of a work area. The examination is often carried out by a manager, who is usually accompanied by a member of the health and safety commit-tee. The purpose of the tour is to determine whether control measures are being observed and maintained i.e. fire exits kept clear, good housekeeping being observed etc.

Safety sampling.

This method or technique is used to measure (by random sample) the potential for accidents and incidents in a specific area or place by identifying hazards and risks in situations.

For example, an area or workplace is divided into sections, with an observer appointed in each section. A pre-determined route through the area is undertaken where observers follow the itin-erary in a pre-determined allowed time, during which the observer will record on a safety sam-pling sheet the points they have observed.

Observers (who are members of staff) should be trained in the techniques of the safety sam-pling process, along with being able to define hazards and risks as well as actual hazard spot-ting.

Safety surveys.

A safety survey is a detailed examination of a specific area of the organisation in health and safety terms. For example, stress in the workplace.

Much will depend on the inherent hazards that are present in the workplace or organisation, and the risks that have been identified.

Question 5

Which method of proactive monitoring is an unscheduled examination of a work area. The ex-amination is often carried out by a manager, who is usually accompanied by a member of the health and safety committee. The purpose is to determine whether control measures are being observed and maintained?

Multiple Choice

Answer 1: Safety Inspection

Response 1:

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Answer 2: Safety Audit

Response 2:

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Answer 3: Safety sampling

Response 3:

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Answer 4: Safety tour

Response 4:

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Answer 5: Safety survey

Response 5:

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3.1 Description of the Key Elements & Features of Health & Safety Audits, Workplace Inspections, Safety Tours, Safety Sampling, Safety Surveys.

An audit is defined by the HSE as:

'the structured process of collecting independent information on the efficiency, effectiveness and reliability of the total safety management system and drawing up plans for corrective action.' HSE- HSG 65.

To identify the most effective way to bring about improvement in the management of health and safety within an organisation, it is important to know the starting point. Strengths and weak-nesses will be identified and appropriate solutions to promote improvement can be devised.

The principle of auditing has been established for a long time in both financial management and quality assurance. The importance of audit as a tool in safety management was recognised by Desmond Fennel QC who, in his report on the King's Cross disaster, stated:

'It is essential that a system should be devised whereby safety of operation can be the subject of audit in the same way as efficiency and economy. If the internal audit has become a yardstick by which financial performance is measured, only by such a tool can the board, and hence the general public be satisfied that all aspects of safety are maintained at the right level.'

The pattern of health and safety legislation is quite clear since the introduction of the Manage-ment of Health and Safety at Work Regulations in 1999.

Employers are required to create safety management systems that need to be supported by documented procedures if they are to be effective. To test how effective the system is, a thor-ough audit has to be conducted.

Effective and efficient management of an employer's legal obligations will ensure that valuable resources are not wasted on the wrong solutions, and ensure that legal compliance can be achieved.

The HSE publication HSG65 Successful Health and Safety Management, the British Standards Institutes BS 8800: A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems and more recently OHSAS 18001 go a long way in identifying a model around which an effective man-agement system can be developed.

A vital element of the model is an audit that enables organisations to identify improvements and feed into the review process to enable improvement to take place.

The key elements of any such audit should ensure the following:

It measures performance against the guidance of the Health and Safety Executive. The results provided are quantitative to facilitate benchmarking.

It encourages progressive improvements in health and safety. It is universal in application. It embodies the principles of risk management which have formed the basis of legislation

and therefore tests compliance. It is supported by the training and management development resources of RoSPA. It follows the principles of auditing set down in ISO 19011: 2002 for quality/environmental

auditing.

It is essential that an audit is carried out by a competent auditor.

Those which describe how the organisation will develop its safety culture under the heading of the four Cs.

Control. Co-operation. Communication. Competence.

Those which describe how the organisation will control risks and relate to:

corporate planning, with the setting of objectives for the organisation; operational planning, centred around the assessment of risks and the setting of control

measures.

3.2 Workplace Inspections.

Workplace inspections involve the examination of the workplace or items of equipment. The purpose is to identify hazards and to determine whether or not they are being effectively con-trolled. There are four different types of common workplace inspections: 1.Preventive maintenance inspections of specific items carried out by maintenance workers 2.Pre use checks of equipment such as vehicles, access equipment and forklift trucks carried out by the user 3.General workplace inspections – carried out by local first-line managers and worker represen-tatives 4.Statutory inspections which involve thorough examination of equipment such as lifting equip-ment and boilers, carried out by a specialist competent person. A typical workplace inspection form can be downloaded from here

3.3 Safety Tours.

Safety and housekeeping at an organisation reflect the standards that the organisation is willing to accept. A safety tour is a method used to identify hazards and maintain standards.

Key elements of a safety tour are as follows:

You do not have to devote a lot of time to the safety tour, and you do not have to conduct a complete tour of an area.

If you know of some places that are trouble spots, concentrate on them first. Sample one or more parts of an area where you can observe staff work practices and

conditions quickly and effectively.

Some managers opt to take 15 or 20 minutes each day for this purpose, others choose to make a single safety tour once a week, spending 30 to 60 minutes. Others devote longer periods within a single major work site once a quarter.

For geographically diverse locations, it may be wiser to cover multiple locations on the same day, spending a day a quarter for the tours.

You need to develop your own system; in fact, you will only get results if you tailor your approach to safety tours and adhere to it even when other business pressures suggest different priorities.

Letting safety tours lapse sends signals that other things are more important than safety. Therefore, plan your safety tours in good time and stick to the commitment you have made. It is crucial that you do not try to combine a safety tour with other visits to the area.

The only way you and your workforce can benefit from your safety tour is for you to react to what you see. The manner in which you react may well be the strongest single ele-ment in improving the safety climate at your site. Your reaction (or lack of it) tells your or-ganisation what is, and is not, acceptable.

In line with the conviction that all injuries and occupational illnesses can be prevented, you must display confidence that work sites and facilities for which you are responsible can achieve high standards of safety.

Become familiar with safety requirements.

Before starting on a safety tour, review the area, the equipment and if needed, applicable stan-dards. Obtain information on process hazards and emergency procedures. Wear the prescribed protective equipment, just as if you were doing the job.

Focus on people.

Make sure each safety tour involves the observation of, and two-way communication with, peo-ple in the workplace. Gain a better understanding by asking open-ended questions - those which cannot be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no.' Such questions do not merely aid in an accurate evaluation, they frequently stimulate the thinking of others as well.

3.4 How to Conduct Effective Safety Tours.

1) Do not let the observed persons see you taking notes. 2) Focus on acts of people, and not on "things". 3) The safety tour should not generate merely a list of things to do. 4) Observe people working for a short while before you start talking to them. Always talk to peo-ple in a place of safety. Take care to ensure that you do not create a risk by interrupting a safety-critical activity. Give people time to stop their work activity safely. 5) Put the people you would like to address at ease before starting the conversation. This takes time and should not be rushed.

6) Do not forget to thank, or congratulate sincerely, people for their actions that reflect good safety practices, role compliance, etc. 7) The safety tour team should ask questions, not deliver lectures. The objective is to get staff members to personally recognise the need to upgrade their safety performance. 8) The discussion should be open, honest, and direct, but not argumentative or confrontational.

The discussion has to be a mutual learning experience. 9) Staff members should be encouraged to comment on any safety concerns they may have. These should be written down (in front of them) to show that a follow-up will be made. The re-sults of this follow-up must be subsequently communicated to the staff member by a member of the safety tour team. Staff member's supervisor should also be kept appropriately informed. 10) Staff members should be thanked for their constructive participation in the safety tour proc-ess. 11) Safety tours should not, unless the staff member's conduct is particularly inappropriate, be-come the basis for disciplinary action. Disciplinary action should be taken by direct supervision based on evidence they have personally gained, coupled with the individual's performance his-tory. 12) The report can be combined with other safety tour reports for the period to enable trend analyses, etc. The safety tour findings should be distributed within the specific line organisation where the safety tour was carried out. Additionally, the reports can be distributed and used throughout the organisation to assist in safety discussions. 13) The safety tours will become a powerful tool supporting the total safety effort. They require management presence in the workplace, and active interaction with staff members on a subject that is staff- oriented (their safety). The safety tours have been found to have an enormous suc-cess in improving morale of the people at the workplace.

The two tables below show suggested questions which could be asked when involved in safety tours:

3.5 Questions for Manager's Safety Tour.

Addressed to supervisors/managers

Which rules and procedures do your people find difficult to follow? Why? What does your workforce think you expect of them? Tell me about your safety programme and action plans. What changes have you seen in site safety in the past year or two? What approach do you use to help your staff become more familiar with rules and proce-

dures? Do you lead safety tours? How do they help you, and help you do your job? What are you doing to achieve company safety targets / accident-free performance? What elements of safety do you emphasise? How? Why? What single thing in how we do things round here would best help you improve the

safety record in your area of responsibility? Why would it do so? What area, job, activity, or piece of equipment do you think most needs attention to im-

prove safety? Why? What tasks most worry your staff with regard to their own safety? Why? Why are rules and procedures violated in your area of responsibility? What is the rate of lost time accidents in your area of responsibility? What were the root

causes of the most recent lost time accident? How do you measure your staff's safety performance? What are your staff's safety needs? What does your manager expect of you with respect to safety? How are these expecta-

tions communicated to you? How often do you discuss safety with your manager? On what occasions? Does your manager tell you what he thinks of your group's safety performance? Does

your manager tell you what he thinks of your performance and contribution? Does your manager carry out safety tours with you? How frequently? How do you benefit

from this activity? Can you use disciplinary measures to correct safety violations? Have you ever done so?

When? Do you give pre-job safety instructions? What do you say? Do you check to ensure com-

pliance? How much time do you spend in the site? How often do you watch people work?

3.6 Questions for Manager's Safety Tour (cont'd).

Addressed to own and contractors' staff members

What has been the safety experience of this group? What, if anything, needs additional safety attention? What part of your job do you worry about most? Why? What do you think your supervisor expects of you regarding safety? Why are rules and procedures violated? Which rules and procedures do you find difficult to follow? Which tools and/or equipment do you find difficult or hazardous to use? Why? What areas of safety has your supervisor emphasised? How? Who do you think is really responsible for developing and maintaining good safety per-

formance at this work site? Tell me about the safety training you received for your job. Have you ever short-cut safety practices on your job? What caused you to take this ac-

tion? Do you ever contribute to developing safety measures, ideas, or rules and procedures? Have you ever submitted a safety suggestion? Why? What were the results of your ac-

tion? How do you rate your supervisors' efforts in the safety programme? What aspect of the safety programme do you like? Why? If you were in charge of administering the safety programme, what changes would you

make? How? Why? To whom do you go when you have a safety problem? Where is the greatest potential for serious injury in your area? What aspects of the operation are most likely to cause trouble? Tell me about your safety and pre-work briefing meetings. Are they worthwhile? Are they opportunities for two-way communications?

3.7 The Do's and Don'ts of Safety Tours.

To improve safety performance, one must eliminate unsafe acts by observing them, taking im-mediate corrective action, and following up to prevent recurrence.

Becoming a good observer takes practice.

Even if you conduct safety tours already, you should consider how to improve your observation skills, so that your tours can be more effective.

The teaching of good observation techniques must be central to training in how to conduct safety tours.

Effective observation has the following main points:

Be selective. Know what to look for. Practice. Keep an open mind. Guard against habit and familiarity. Do not be satisfied with general impressions. Record observations systematically.

Observation techniques (the do's):

Stop for 10 to 30 seconds before entering a new area to ascertain where people are working.

Be alert for unsafe practices that are corrected as soon as you enter an area. Observe activity/do not avoid the action. Remember ABBI - look Above, Below, Behind, Inside. Recognise good performance. Develop a questioning attitude to determine what injuries might occur if the unexpected

happened, and how the job might be accomplished more safely. Ask, 'What could hap-pen if . . .?' and 'How can this job be performed more safely?'

Use all your senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch. Maintain a balanced approach. Observe all phases of the job. Be inquisitive. Observe for ideas - do not go on a tour just to determine problems.

Wrong safety tour practices (the don'ts):

Only supervisors or foremen conduct safety tours. Little interest from, or involvement by, higher management. No follow-up or record of participation. No staff involvement. Letting quotas on required number of observations. Use of 'cops and robbers' approach. No communication of results to staff. Lack of discussion between management levels. No follow-up to correct problems, or to change behaviour.

3.8 Approaching People on Safety Tours.

A safety tour is an opportunity to communicate to the people your own personal values and standards of safety. Remember: You get the level of safety you demonstrate you want. If you walk past an unsafe act without taking time to talk to the person about it, you have lost a golden opportunity of showing how serious you are about safety. On the contrary, the message you give is: I accept your low standards of safety.

On a safety tour, you need to talk with the people about what is wrong, what is right, and about their jobs. However, most persons, especially senior managers, are reluctant to approach staff

members and talk to them about their safe and unsafe acts. What are the reasons for this reluc-tance?

In most cases, it is the uncertainty about:

how the person will react; having the skill or the knowledge; whose responsibility it is.

One cannot predict the reaction of the staff being approached; it could be anything between positive listening to telling you off. However, certain skills can be learned to minimise negative reactions.

Starting a conversation with general questions, and expressing your concern about that per-son's well-being if the unsafe act got out of control, are very effective approaches to creating a positive atmosphere.

The five basic steps when correcting someone doing an unsafe act are:

Step 1 Observe - then contact Before you make the contact, be sure you are not increasing the per-son's risk by distracting him.

Call the person away from the work activity before starting the conversation. Stopping an unsafe act requires care and exercising it is your responsibility. Step 2 Comment on safe behaviour By commenting on what the person was doing safely, you are demonstrating that you are not a policeman out to catch unsafe acts but are truly interested in his safety, and that you recognise good safety performance. Step 3 Discuss: a) Consequences of unsafe act; b) Safer ways to do the job The most difficult part is now raising the issue of what is not being done safely. You can either comment, or you can ask questions.

If you comment, express your concern, and avoid getting into a discussion on how you think the job could be done safely. For example, it is better to say, "I am concerned about the possibility of your cutting yourself holding the knife that way," than to say, "You shouldn't cut like that". The latter sounds like a reprimand.

If you question, do it to understand the situation or the motivation behind the person's act. Ques-tion to explore and to learn, and not to teach. Step 4 Get agreement to work safely Get his agreement to work in this new safe manner Step 5 Discuss other safety issues Having thus established contact, use the opportunity to discuss with him if he sees any other safety-related hazards in his work. Most of the time, staff members are quite aware of those hazard points. Note down any important point and promise a follow up. Step 6 Thank him/her Thanking when parting reinforces the positive atmosphere of the safety tour.

Carrying out an effective safety tour is a skill like any other skill, and can hence be learned like

all other skills. Even without this learning, just going around and talking to people on safety starts the process rolling.

One important fact to be aware of is that you cannot make safety tours at the same time you are going around for another purpose. If you try to combine safety with other business concerns, you will find it all too easy to overlook safety. That has been the experience of many companies. It is easy to think, "Nobody has been hurt, so there is no pressing need to talk about safety." Other business issues, surprisingly, always seem to be pressing.

Your safety tour should be concerned with safety and safety only. Dissuade others from divert-ing your mind to "more pressing problems" and insist on concentrating only on safety during this tour. Those pressing problems have time after the tour.

Safety Sampling

Safety sampling is a management tool for making the workplace safer by studying how proc-esses and people operate. By identifying unsafe behaviours, future accidents can be avoided.

Safety-sampling plans are designed to meet the specific needs of the organisation. Analysis of collected data enables management to develop a plan to identify and eliminate unsafe behav-iours from their system.

Reactive checks are those that are made post-incident in response to reports that highlight something that is not according to plan.

The most common such checks in health and safety are the accident statistics used to ensure accident performance. These record failures (accidents) after they have occurred and, while they can give an indication of where corrective action needs to be taken, the price of an accident has already been paid. There is also delay between the incident, or series of incidents that have attracted attention, and the initiation of corrective action.

Unless care is taken in the way in which an investigation into an accident is carried out, obvious causes, such as lack of guards etc. especially when there is the possibility of future litigation, can divert attention from the underlying, but not necessarily obvious, cause.

Accident statistics are relatively easy to collect but have a limited role and must be seen as one of a number of techniques that can be employed in the identification, elimination and control of hazards.

The proactive approach, on the other hand, endeavours to identify, evaluate and control haz-ards and risks before they develop to the stage of causing an accident.

The technique is inherent in the process of risk management.

One of the more common methods employed to identify potential hazards before they manifest themselves is the safety inspection or survey, carried out by the safety adviser, manager and safety representative, where the work area is inspected for any hazards which are noted.

After the inspection the identified hazards are assessed and a plan of action to put them right is formulated. Variations on this theme include:

safety tours, safety sampling which involves inspecting the whole work area but looking only for par-

ticular types of hazard - i.e. the sample, and safety audits.

Training.

A key element in achieving and maintaining high levels of safety is knowledge of the hazards, their effects and the techniques to avoid or ameliorate those effects. With this knowledge comes the confidence to deal with the hazards, but it is important that the knowledge acquired is rele-vant and is technically correct. Much harm can be done when using incorrect information in the

misguided belief of its veracity.

The responsibility for ensuring that the knowledge employees of all levels have about the haz-ards they may meet is correct, and with a sound technical base, lies with the employer. The pro-vision of that knowledge through training, instruction and information constitutes a major contri-bution towards high safety performance.

In providing the training, account must be taken of the level of employee involved. At senior manager level with high qualifications, the information can be of a fairly technical nature whereas at operator level the information needs to be more basic, related to the identification of the substance in terms meaningful to the operator, recognition of the hazard, its likely effect on an individual and the action necessary to avoid ill-effects.

How, and to what degree the training is given will depend on the local circumstances, practices, types of labour and seriousness of the hazard involved.

Question 6

Which of the following are common workplace inspections?

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Preventive maintenance inspections of specific items carried out by maintenance workers

Response 1:

Jump 1: Next page

Answer 2: Pre use checks of equipment such as vehicles, access equipment and forklift trucks carried out by the user

Response 2:

Jump 2: Next page

Answer 3: General workplace inspections – carried out by local first-line managers and worker representatives

Response 3:

Jump 3: Next page

Answer 4: Statutory inspections which involve thorough examination of equipment such as lifting equipment and boilers, carried out by a specialist competent person.

Response 4:

Jump 4: Next page

3.9 Safety Surveys.

The typical measure of safety undertaken by most organisations is the amount of time lost from work due to accidents. Minimising lost time accidents is a worthy goal. But to a person involved in an accident, this measurement method offers little solace.

If your organisation's lost time accident statistics are good, do you know why? Is it that the safety policies and adherence to them are sufficient, or is it just luck? How do you identify "an accident waiting to happen?"

A safety survey can help you to identify health and safety lapses. A survey can be easy to set up and easy to complete (and you can have results in a very short period of time).

An example of how a survey can be structured given below:

Question Disagree Strongly

Disagree Somewhat

Neutral Agree Somewhat

Agree Strongly

I understand all the safety rules and regula-tions related to my job

I have the authority to correct unsafe ac-tions or conditions

Employee safety is a top concern of com-pany management

I feel confident any safety concerns I raise will be addressed

I rarely feel exhausted at work

I have enough lighting in my work area

My back never aches after a work shift

I have access to hearing protection that works (factory workers only)

Other employees around me always act in a safe manner

If I refused to work when I felt I would put myself in danger, I would not get into trou-ble

Safety surveys are similar to safety audits except they do not evaluate management attitudes, nor do they ensure that safety programs are in place. Safety surveys should be considered as walk-throughs of the physical areas of the organisation and related areas, with the goal of identi-fying safety hazards and concerns.

The surveys should be conducted on a regular basis by a competent person. These personnel should note problem areas, write reports, present the report to management, offer recommenda-tions, set completion dates and follow-up to ensure action has taken place. These personnel should concentrate on working conditions, working practices, housekeeping, process controls, hazard exposure, and other similar concerns.

A typical survey of a site could include the following:

SAFETY SURVEY LIST

Working Areas.

Adequate lighting in the work area? Laboratory work areas reasonably clean and tidy? Area kept as clean as work allows? Guards on fan blades are safely located? Ladders and step-stools in good condition and used in the manner for which they were

designed? Two and four-wheeled carts and hand trucks in good condition? List of emergency numbers, First Aid, and CPR-certified employees clearly displayed? No foods, beverages, tobacco, or cosmetics in laboratory?

Eating, drinking, use of tobacco, and use of cosmetics prohibited in the laboratory? No chipped or broken glassware in use?

Means of Egress.

Walkways kept free of snow and ice? Stairs well lit? Stairs of sturdy design? Railings provided on all open sides of exposed stairways? Anti-skid walking surfaces on the stairs? Stairs clean? All non-exit doors and passages which could be mistaken for an exit marked as such? All exits clearly designated? All exits unobstructed? All exit signs illuminated? (They must be illuminated by general room lighting or internal

lighting.) Emergency lighting provided for fire escape routes? All fire doors unobstructed and free of locks and devices that could prevent free egress? Designated fire doors closed and operable? All fire doors side hinged and swing in the direction of the escape? Floors free from protrusions and large holes? Floors free from litter and obstructions? Floors clean and dry? Drainage provided for continuously wet floors? Mats and carpeting in good condition? Aisles and passageways well lit? Aisles and passageways kept clear to provide safe movement of materials handling

equipment or employees? No loose or protruding shelving or edging that could cause a safety problem? Covers or guard rails provided for open pits, vats, etc.? Guard rails provided for platforms greater than 4 feet above the adjacent floor?

Materials Handling & Storage.

Area free of the accumulation of materials that could cause tripping, fires, explosions, or pest harbouring?

Sprinklers clear of stored materials? Correct labelling appears on doors and cabinets? Materials stored to prevent sliding, falling, or collapse? Storage shelving secure, in good condition, and not over-loaded or crowded? Storage shelving provided with a lip on forward edge? Hazardous chemicals not stored on floor? Sufficient waste containers provided? A closable metal container provided for oily rags (if necessary)? Reagents used at the bench properly labelled to prevent accidental use of the wrong re-

agent or wash bottle?

3.10 Outline of In-house & Proprietary Audit Systems.

In this section, we will look at three different types of proprietary audit systems:

ISRS;

5 Star Audit; CHASE.

3.11 Safety management - The International Safety Rating System.

A safety audit is an investigation in an organisation in which an evaluation is made of what that organisation is doing to control accidents/incidents, to prevent undesired events from happening and to limit the consequences in case the event would still take place.

Safety audits are carried out using safety audit "systems". Safety audit systems, one way or the other, contain questionnaires that lead us through the organisation concerned. At the end they are intended to provide us with the strong and weak points of the structured safety and loss con-trol management activities.

A good audit tool enables connections to be made between the various safety/loss control activi-ties included and therefore one can indeed speak of a safety audit system rather than just a "questionnaire".

Based on the results from the audit, suggestions can be made to improve the control activities and thus the safety management system of the organisation. Such suggestions actually form an integral part of a good audit system and follow more or less "automatically" from the audit re-sults and report.

The audit process needs to be repeated on a periodic basis to obtain the desired level of safety performance. This can be assured through a process in which audits, improvement suggestions, training and execution of related action plans are combined until the desired level has been reached. Maintain the desired level once this has been reached.

One of the most comprehensive audit systems today is the International Safety Rating System.

The basis of the ISRS, known as Total Loss Control, was laid in the late sixties/early seventies, in the USA, more particular within one of the largest American insurance companies - INA (In-surance Company of North America).

ISRS has been the basis of more safety management systems worldwide than any other docu-ment or strategy. This system, based on the South African Chamber of Mines Five Star system was developed by Frank E Bird Jr. (1921-2007), founder of the International Loss Control Insti-tute (ICLI).

The ISRS involves 20 elements as part of the "core" safety/loss control audit system. The 20 elements include about 120 "sub-elements" which are further detailed into more than 600 crite-ria in the form of questions.

The questions are provided with value factors through which it is possible to provide a percent-age rating for safety activity in comparison with the relevant element in the ISRS.

Although the ISRS as a whole is a comprehensive program, in fact it consists of 10 audit sys-tems which are all integrated and vary from a questionnaire containing fewer than 90 questions in the simplest form to about 620 in the most comprehensive version.

The ISRS therefore can be used within smaller companies as well as large companies, within organisations with a starting safety program as well as in those with a more evolved program, and in low risk occupancies as well as in high risk occupancies.

The ISRS also allows adaptation towards the particular needs of an organisation by translating ISRS criteria into guidelines for practical application within the location or organisation con-cerned.

Finally, the ISRS can be used as an external reference to build the management system of an organisation over a period of time.

ISRS Elements:

1. Leadership

2. Leadership/training

3. Planned inspections and maintenance

4. Critical task analysis and procedures

5. Accident / incident investigation

6. Task observation

7. Emergency preparedness

8. Rules and work permits

9. Accident / incident analysis

10. Knowledge and skill training

11. Personal protective equipment

12. Occupational health and hygiene

13. System evaluation

14. Engineering and change management

15. Individual communication

16. Group communication

17. General promotion

18. Hiring and placement

19. Materials and services management

20. Off-the-job safety

The process of the safety audit

The safety audit process is briefly described below, and based on experiences gained with the ISRS. In principle, the audit process contains the following steps:

A. Introduction(s)

B. Interviews and verification

C. Initial report

D. Final report

E. Presentation on findings

A. INTRODUCTIONS inform people what will happen and what is expected of them. The intro-duction also conveys the "why" and "how" of the audit and the background of the auditing proc-ess as part of an improvement process. Depending on the size of the organisation, several in-troductions may take place. It is suggested that at least the following groups shall be part of this:

1. Introduction to senior management.

This introduction follows the top-down approach. Senior management should be informed first about the safety audit process and should be given the chance to support the process further down the organisation. This way, senior management can demonstrate their leadership by sup-porting the audit as part of the desired change process.

2. Introduction to Safety Committee(s).

This introduction serves to inform these committees about the how and why, and relates the au-dit process to the safety improvement process and the relevant legislation.

3. Introduction to Interviewees.

This introduction is intended to inform the persons selected to take part in the next step of the auditing process about their role in it. This introduction could be in conjunction with the senior management introduction (if the organisation is relatively small) but normally is separately done since some more detailed explanation is required here.

This introduction is normally 2 - 4 weeks after the senior management introduction and inter-viewees are given the audit questionnaires prior to the meeting.

The role of the interviewees is:

To answer the relevant questions of the audit elements assigned to them To collect documentation and other evidence for verification during the audit interviews, when-ever a positive answer is being given and to confirm that the related activity is indeed taking place. In fact a "pre-audit" is carried out to prepare for the formal external audit.

B. THE INTERVIEWS.

The interviews normally take place between 4 to 8 weeks after the introduction to the interview-ees. This allows them to properly carry out the "pre-audit" for preparation and also to provide time for the organisation to carry out a "Physical Conditions Evaluation" which will be verified during the audit interview period.

The interviews will be carried out by an experienced auditor ("Accredited Safety Auditor") using the ISRS questionnaires. As soon as a question is answered affirmatively, the auditor will re-quest evidence to verify that this is acceptable for audit purposes.

C. After the interviews have been carried out, an INITIAL REPORT will be made by the auditor, containing:

- Short introduction concerning the audit process carried out. - Summary of findings, conclusions and suggestions for improvement. - Graphical and mathematical summary of audit results. - Element reports containing:

brief listing of criteria considered and the related scoring; brief description of element contents and importance; short description of the main items found during the audit to support; further development of the element activity concerned; listing of the main suggestions for further improvement in the element concerned. The filled-out audit questionnaires supplying the auditor's evaluation and brief comments

where necessary. This document provides further information about the present state of the organisation's safety and loss control program, as compared with the criteria used in the ISRS.

The initial report is made to allow possible changes based on comments by the audited com-pany. Changes will be made if documented evidence can be provided to sustain this.

D. THE FINAL REPORT will be made allowing changes if provided within a limited time period after the initial report. If no further comments are made, the initial report will automatically be-come the final report.

Experience has learned that very few adaptations are normally required to be made from initial to final report.

E. THE PRESENTATION of the final report will conclude the auditing process. This presentation will be made for senior management. During the presentation a short resume is given of the au-diting process and the "why" of it and the most important findings are presented.

A major part of the presentation is directed at the possible next step: the improvement process.

While making suggestions, one has to consider that suggestions directed at improvement of the management system will be directed at the long-term objectives of the organisation. While this is absolutely necessary for lasting success, the need for short-term results should not be forgotten.

Suggestions for short-term results will address particular problem areas found during the physi-cal tour of the location being audited, and will normally be directed at the "direct causes" (through "inspections" and "behaviour observation") or be based on analysis of acci-dents/incidents.

Short-term" actions would also include training of relevant management personnel.

3.12 The 5 Star Audit.

This audit system is a concept and product of the British Safety Council who give the following information:

The on-site compliance audit assesses whether you fulfil the requirements of OHSAS 18001. It is designed not only to measure your existing health & safety practices against minimum stan-dards, but also to assess whether the procedures you have in place will enable you to move to-wards improving your quality systems.

The areas examined will ask your organisation to answer the following questions:

Do you have:

Well-defined objectives and policy? Demonstrably strong management commitment, competence and leadership? Provision of adequate resources? Agreed and justified standards and procedures? Consultation with the workforce? Effective performance monitoring and feedback? Systematic and comprehensive selection, induction and training processes? Promotion of principles and good job design? Effective communication? Well-practised and effective procedures? The support of professionals?

3.13 OH&S 18001 Compliance.

1. OH&S Policy.

This involves demonstrating commitment through having in place clearly-defined policies which are appropriate to the nature and scale of the business risk, including continuous improvement and compliance with relevant legislation.

This process needs to be well-documented to ensure it is consistently implemented and main-tained in the workplace. The communication to employees of this, as well as them understand-ing their individual obligations, is an important element.

Like all good systems, it needs reviewing and, where necessary, updating for continuous im-provement.

2. Planning.

This cycle establishes and maintains procedures for the ongoing identification of hazards, the assessment of risks and the implementation of necessary control measures.

The scope should include routine and non-routine activities, as well as incorporating subcontrac-tors and visitors.

Again, documentation and the methodologies adopted are important, as well as ensuring that

they provide clear guidance to all concerned.

3. Implementation and Operation.

The process also looks for clearly-defined roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of person-nel who manage, perform and verify activities, as well as ensuring that they provide clear guid-ance to all concerned.

4. Checking and Corrective Action.

This involves designing into work structures at all levels systems that monitor and measure per-formance on a regular basis.

This should include proactive measures of performance that monitor compliance with the OH&S management programme, operational criteria and applicable legislation, regulatory requirements and approved codes of practice.

5. Management Review.

This involves developing the workforce capability to ensure that they have the necessary skills as well as reviewing the OH&S management system to ensure its suitability, adequacy and ef-fectiveness against the profile of business risk.

6. Continuous Improvement.

This stage will check that the organisation has embraced the concept of continuous improve-ment where it seeks out barriers to safety and removes them.

The 18001 Compliance Audit is a dynamic process which helps you identify and deliver proac-tive and practical solutions. While the assessment in itself is finite in that it represents an ap-praisal of your organisation at a specific point in time, it also assists you in creating an effective framework for improving systems.

Once achieved, it can help you to move toward best practice principles in health & safety man-agement.

3.14 CHASE.

Originally designed for health and safety, the CHASE (Complete Health And Safety Evaluation) system is designed around good management practices. In the UK, such a system is described in Successful Health and Safety Management (HSG65) from the HSE and BS 8800 from BSI, or the OHSAS 18001 standard.

In terms of BS 8800, CHASE fits into both the Measuring and Auditing aspects of the model, which is shown below, while in OHSAS 18001, CHASE fits in to Checking and Corrective Ac-tion.

Key Features.

Originally designed for health and safety, CHASE is used for any type of loss control - Environ-mental, Quality, Food Hygiene, etc. CHASE is designed to be flexible so you use it to monitor your performance against your stan-dards - edit or create your own questions to make it specific to your organisation.

Create and follow up recommendations and actions plans. Monitor performance over time. Built-in evaluation and audit scheduling. CHASE enables managers to extract useful information from audit and monitoring data. Line managers can perform their own self-assessments, backed up with external verifi-

cation by independent auditors.

3.15 The Use of Computer Technology.

Computers are now a necessity in today's business world. They are relied upon to produce work and also to hold, store and analyse data.

Firstly, let us familiarise ourselves with definitions:

Software is a general term for all programmes that can be used on a computer. There is little difference between software and programme, but software may include associated documenta-tion.

An application is software that performs a function directly for a user, like a word-processor or a browser.

System Software: this includes programmes that control the way the computer operates (called operating systems)

Hardware: components of a computer system, including monitors, hard drives, CD-ROMs, print-ers, modems, etc. The physical components of a computer system. It is controlled by the soft-ware. It is like driving a car: the hardware is the car itself, the software is the actual driving or instructions given the car by the driver to take it where the driver wants to go.

Server: a computer or a software package that provides a specific kind of service to client soft-ware running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running e.g. "our mail server is down today, that's why the e-mail isn't going in or out". A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.

Text programs i.e. word processors.

To prepare and maintain documents such as risk assessments, reports, etc. To prepare and maintain forms, such as accident forms, inspection checklists, etc.

Alphanumeric Data such as Databases.

These are not very easy to understand and so a competent level of computer programming knowledge is required. It is usually the case where in large organisations, the safety department will liaise with the computer department and request a database to be supplied in a certain way. The computer department then comes up with the required database.

There are two stages in using a database:

Setting up the database. Entering the data.

Specific databases such as ones specifically for recording accidents etc:

This type of database requires you to be clear about what data you are to record, and what analysis needs to be carried out on that data.

Choosing Software:

Ensure that you know (or have access to the relevant knowledge of) the hardware and system software you have. This way you can narrow down the selection criteria of soft-ware programmes that run on your system.

Ensure that you know what it is you want to achieve from the software. Ensure you have a good look at what is available on the computer market before making

your choice. Ensure that you have a demonstration by the software company to ensure you can get

the best from it. Ensure you complete a cost/benefit analysis before you buy.

3.16 Benchmarking.

In their free leaflet, the Health and Safety Executive explain the concept of benchmarking as follows:

What is Health and Safety Benchmarking?

Health and Safety benchmarking is a planned process by which an organisation compares its health and safety processes and performance with others to learn how to:

reduce accidents and ill-health; improve compliance with health and safety law; cut compliance costs.

Benchmarking is not just about comparing data or copying your competitors. Benchmarking is more about continuously learning from others, learning more about your organisation's strengths and weaknesses in the process, and then acting on the lessons learned. This is what leads to real improvement.

Benchmarking is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Some organisations aim for business excellence and want to be seen as 'best', or at least better than average. Benchmarking all as-pects of your business, including health and safety can help you achieve this.

But it is also useful in helping you meet your health and safety duties in a more effective and efficient way.

Why benchmark on health and safety?

Managing health and safety should be just as important to organisations as managing other ar-eas like production, finance or customer care. You may have tried benchmarking in some of these other areas, but not in health and safety.

Benchmarking health and safety gives you similar advantages; it helps you:

improve your reputation – this is increasingly important in getting and keeping contracts; avoid reinventing the wheel – learn from others experiences and pick up on others good

ideas by comparing and contrasting how things are done; develop relationships with your customers and suppliers, including contractors; find out where you stand – you may think you're better than average or even the best,

but are you really? save money and help keep your competitive edge. Savings can come for example, from

reduced insurance premiums, increased productivity and staff turnover; improve overall management of health and safety and reduce risks to people's health

and safety.

There are five steps top benchmarking:

Step 1 Decide what to benchmark. Step 2 Analyse where you are. Step 3 Selecting partners. Step 4 Working with your partner.

Step 5 Acting on the lessons learned.

Step One:

You can apply benchmarking to any aspect of health and safety. It makes sense to prioritise. High hazard and risk topics are good places to start as these are areas where most harm could be done. You could identify priorities by looking at the findings of your risk assessment.

Accident and ill-health patterns in your organisation or industry may also indicate priorities, es-pecially if you can identify any common causes. You may have other priorities, which could make equally good places to start.

Safety representatives, team leaders and trade association representatives may have good ideas on suitable topics for health and safety benchmarking as they have good contacts with employees and other organisations. You can encourage these people to make the most of these contacts.

Think about both your health and safety processes (how you do things) and your performance (the results of what you do); you could benchmark both. Performance data (accident and ill-health statistics, percentage of risk assessments completed etc) give an indication of where pri-orities may be.

You should be careful how you use some types of performance data, particularly accident statis-tics. Accident statistics can be useful, but remember that they only show the 'tip of the iceberg.' Process benchmarking allows real improvement to be made as you examine what goes on and how it could be done better.

Processes may be at workplace level (e.g. how you control a particular hazard) or management level (e.g. how you investigate incidents, carry out risk assessments).

Health and safety benchmarking work can be led by, or involve, various people, for example managers, safety representatives or trade association representatives. You will need both sen-ior management and employee commitment and involvement at all key stages.

Step Two:

You need to identify your starting position - are you meeting health and safety law or relevant codes of practice in your chosen topic? HSE and other guidance can help you find out.

You need to think about how you will measure where you are and where you want to be. This will help you measure your improvement from benchmarking. You can use measures based on numbers, for example the percentage of managers who have completed health and safety train-ing, or you may prefer to use qualitative measurements.

If you use an audit system, you could use your results (sometimes these are 'scores') as a measure. Later, you could compare your results with others that use the same system.

As part of this process, you may choose to survey employees to find out what they think the cur-rent position is. Involvement of safety representatives can help to make surveys more success-ful.

Check that health and safety benchmarking is the best way to progress. It may be that HSE (or other) guidance will give you all the help you need. Preparation work in analysing your proc-esses may reveal problems that can be sorted without the need to benchmark.

Step Three:

If you are part of a large organisation you could find partners both within your organisation (in-ternal benchmarking) and outside (external benchmarking). Smaller organisations will probably need to look outside, as they are too small to have a wide range of potential partners to choose from inside their firms. The chart shows the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.

You may choose to work with one partner or a number of them. You could join a benchmarking club where you will have a range of potential partners from whom to choose. Your trade asso-ciation or benchmarking organisations sometimes offer this service. 'Off-the-shelf' benchmarking packages are also available.

You can use different ways to find partners. Your existing networks are likely to include potential partners, for example networks created by trade associations, local business organisations, your contractors and suppliers, health and safety organisations, trade unions, or neighbouring firms.

Initially, it's probably best to make contact by phone - explaining who you are, why you're con-tacting them, the purpose of the health and safety benchmarking exercise, your areas of interest and, importantly, what's 'in it' for them.

Confirm the arrangement. Look for an organisation that leads in your chosen topic, but is not so far in the lead that it would be unrealistic to work together.

For workplace processes (e.g. safeguarding for a machine), it is probably best to look for part-ners in a similar industry with similar processes.

For management processes (e.g. carrying out risk assessment), you will have a wider choice of partners, as these processes are common across industries. When you agree a partnership, there needs to be mutual benefit - 'give and take '. You should be prepared to give your partner something in return.

Decide whether you will need to visit your partner's workplace. Sharing information by phone may be enough. It is usually best to meet, so you can see for yourself, and talk to relevant peo-ple. If you decide to visit, involve your managers and safety representatives in the visit because they are the ones who will be helping to put in place any improvements you identify.

Step Four:

With the right planning and preparation (Steps 1 to 3), this stage should be straightforward:

Be realistic – don't try to do too much in one go. When exchanging information, you need to make sure it's comparable. Respect your partner – remember confidentiality, give and take equally.

During contact with partners, make sure you really understand what they do, how they do it and why it's better. This is the information you will need to learn.

Step Five:

This is a key step - if you don't get this right, all the work you've done so far will be lost! Re-member the purpose of health and safety benchmarking is not to copy but to learn from others, learn more about yourself and, as a result, take action to improve.

Devise an action plan, based on your findings. It's important to make sure your plan fits in with the 'culture' of your organisation. Your partner may have a very different culture, and the lan-guage and methods they use may need to be adapted for your organisation.

Make your action plan S M A R T T (Specific, Measurable, Agreed , Realistic, Trackable and Timebound).

Identify what you need to do, who should do it and when. Make sure you get senior manage-ment and employee commitment to the action plan. Remember to involve safety representa-tives.

Implement your action plan and regularly review progress with it. Are you where you want to be?

If there are problems it may be useful to contact your partner(s) again to see if they can help you overcome them.

Remember continuous improvement – keep an eye out to see if standards have moved on. If they have, reset your benchmark and you can start from Step 1 again. As in any other area of business, you shouldn't stand still.

To succeed in health and safety benchmarking, you need:

Senior Management resources and commitment; employee involvement; a commitment to an open and participative approach to health and safety, including a

willingness to share information with others; an ability to identify your strengths and weaknesses; to compare data on a meaningful 'apples with apples' basis.

Question 7

Which of the following are the advantages of Benchmarking?

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Improve your reputation – this is increasingly important in getting and keeping contracts;

Response 1:

Jump 1: Next page

Answer 2: Avoid reinventing the wheel – learn from others experiences and pick up on others good ideas by comparing and contrasting how things are done

Response 2:

Jump 2: This page

Answer 3: Develop relationships with your customers and suppliers, including contractors

Response 3:

Jump 3: Next page

Answer 4: Find out where you stand – you may think you're better than average or even the best, but are you really?

Response 4:

Jump 4: Next page

Answer 5: Save money and help keep your competitive edge. Savings can come for example, from reduced insurance premiums, increased productivity and staff turnover.

Response 5:

Jump 5: Next page

Answer 6: Improve overall management of health and safety and reduce risks to people's health and safety.

Response 6:

Jump 6: Next page

3.17 The Corporate Health a& Safety Performance Index

We have discussed the concept of benchmarking and to a certain extent, businesses are on their own when it comes to finding the details and information against which they can measure their own performance. What was needed was a centralised store of information, in a common

format where organisations could register and check their performance and compliance against a number of standards to achieve a recognised and universally applicable grading.

The Corporate Health and Safety Performance Index, known as CHaSPI is a health and safety performance index suitable for organisations with more than 250 employees, operating in the UK within any business, public or charity/volunteer sector. The development of the Index has been funded by the UK's Health & Safety Executive (HSE).

This Index underwent a period of validation during 2004, and with subsequent modifications was launched by the HSE in July 2005.

Aims

CHaSPI aims to help in the assessment of how well an organisation manages its risks and re-sponsibilities towards its workers, the public and other stakeholders.

Various stakeholders may wish to use this Index: Internal stakeholders - those working for the organisation completing the Index External stakeholders - investors, insurers, potential employees, and others.

It can be used as an indicator of performance and, over time, progress in health and safety management.

Approach

CHaSPI is designed to give a measure of an organisation's health and safety performance. It combines measures of outcomes (e.g. accident rates) and management processes, to reflect an organisation's overall performance in health and safety.

Users

Any large or multinational organisation operating in the UK is welcome to register to complete the index.

3.18 CHaSPI for Investors

Why should investors be interested in CHaSPI?

CHaSPI is a means by which companies can communicate performance on occupational health and safety using a recognised set of indicators. Recent changes to the UK Company Law require companies to produce Operating and Finan-cial Reviews for 2005, which "…must, to the extent necessary for an understanding of the de-velopment, performance or position of the business of the company…where appropriate…key performance indicators and information relating to environmental matters and employee mat-ters". CHaSPI offers a means by which to engage with directors on this matter.

Flexible to different reporting frameworks It is recognised that companies collect information in various ways. Therefore, CHaSPI enables companies to report at a group level and even susbidiary level. For example, a company may choose to disclose information at a group level that reflects UK and overseas data, while infor-mation at the subsidiary level can reflect only UK data. CHaSPI consists of 9 indicators all of which are mandatory to complete. How the company may choose to complete these indicators may vary, as there are options available to qualify lack of numerical data in some key indicators with statements of current approaches. Two indicators in particular to which this applies include provision of data, e.g. on employee sickness absence indicator and contractor injury rates.

CHaSPI for all sectors

Health and safety should always be considered an aspect of an organisation's risk manage-ment, and not only applicable to those organisations with hazardous activities. CHaSPI has specifically been designed with all sectors in mind, considering both accident and injury rates as well as occupational health issues.

3.19 CHaSPI for Health & Safety Practitioners Why should H&S Professionals be interested in CHaSPI?

CHaSPI offers the ability to help manage health and safety performance in a more organised manner. CHaSPI results are created through a series of questions selected to provide a strate-gic overview of an organisation's occupational health and safety performance.

CHaSPI permits a Health and Safety Professional to assist their clients in identifying strategic occupational health and safety indicators, to benchmark performance and publicly demonstrate their commitment to health and safety.

3.20 CHaSPI for Trade Unions

CHaSPI – a tool for engagement

CHaSPI is a means by which organisations can communicate performance on occupational health and safety using a set of leading and lagging indicators.

CHaSPI offers a means by which to engage with organisations proactively reporting as the re-sults allow for increased transparency on occupational health and safety performance and benchmarking of performance within sectors.

Additionally, it offers an opportunity to identify and engage with those not participating or with particularly poor performance.

Employers and trade union safety representatives often need to share a common understanding of an organisation's health and safety performance • Through access to information within the same industry and across sectors, trade union repre-sentatives can begin to establish a clear picture of their organisation's performance and highlight areas for possible improvement • Trade union representatives may be able to influence and persuade their company / organisa-tion to consider the benefits of CHaSPI and apply it, both to the organisation they represent and across industry as a whole • Trade union pension fund trustees can use it as part of their ethical role

Benefits of CHaSPI

• Creates a level playing field in which trade union representatives can access evidence based information and create a dialogue with employers and employees • Provides a means for companies and organisations to visibly demonstrate that they are en-gaged in assessing their safety performance • Enables partnership and consultative working between individual companies/organisations and their stakeholders • Trade union representatives don't need permission to view information that is publicly available through the CHaSPI website • Trade unions can compare performance at high levels between various different types of com-panies/organisations.

3.21 CHaSPI for Business

Why should business be interested in CHaSPI?

CHaSPI can serve two purposes for businesses: • It allows a company to assess its performance on health and safety using a recognised set of indicators. The results can be used to benchmark performance within or across sectors, as well as enabling performance to be tracked over time • It allows the business to clearly and concisely communicate its occupational health and safety performance to external stakeholders who are concerned about risk, particularly those from the financial sector such as investors and insurers

What information is made publicly available?

The detailed responses and data is visible only to registered organisation users with pass word protected access.

Only the high level results of each indicator is made publicly available as a summary report on the company.

This lists the overall CHaSPI score for the company and the results of the 9 indicators.

There is some additional information that is captured in a notes section that qualifies some of the indicators above, e.g. whether data has been provided on contractor injury rates.

3.22 CHaSPI for the Public Sector

Organisations are increasingly being asked to measure, benchmark and report their health and safety performance

• Good health and safety is an essential part of providing best value, ensuring quality of service and increasing productivity • Organisations are seeking to benchmark their performance against others, to help guide their own targets and to track their performance over time • CHaSPI helps fulfil government commitment to transparency and accountability.

CHaSPI is intended to help meets these needs.

Benefits of CHaSPI

Publicly demonstrating your commitment to health and safety • Supporting your public reporting needs • Enabling better engagement with key stakeholders • Can be used as part of a Comprehensive Performance Assessment • Allowing you to compare your organisation's performance with others, including by sector • Helping to demonstrate best value.

How is CHaSPI built for the public sector?

• CHaSPI is intended to be flexible, so that it can be completed by any public sector body oper-ating in the UK • Ensuring that the sector classifications cover the full range public sector organisations • Allowing benchmarking results within and beyond your sector; so you can compare your per-formance with any other organisation that completes CHaSPI • Providing online technical support and help desk.

Question 8.

Which of the following are benefits of CHaSPI?

Multiple Choice - Multianswer

Answer 1: Supporting your public reporting needs

Response 1:

Jump 1: Next page

Answer 2: Enabling better engagement with key stakeholders

Response 2:

Jump 2: Next page

Answer 3: Can be used as part of a Comprehensive Performance Assessment

Response 3:

Jump 3: Next page

Answer 4: Allowing you to compare your organisation's performance with others, including by sector

Response 4:

Jump 4: Next page

Answer 5: Helping to demonstrate best value.

Response 5:

Jump 5: Next page

3.23 Health & Safety Executive, Health & Safety Performance Indicator (HSPI) 2005.

The heatlh and Safety Executive, Health and Safety Performance Indicator (HSPI) 2005. (This is similar to CHaSPI, but for organisations with fewer than 250 employees).

Introduction

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in its first report on the review of Employ-ers’Liability Compulsory Insurance (ELCI) noted that a health and safety performance index is needed for Small and Medium Sized employers (SME) to enable insurers and/or their brokers to get a measure of health and safety performance of SMEs (DWP, 2003). In 2003 the government undertook a review of the Employer's Liability Compulsory Insurance. Commenting on its sub-sequent report, the Minister for Work indicated that too many businesses face premiums that fail to reflect their health and safety record. One resulting action was to create a tool for small to medium-sized businesses that would enable insurers to make that link and thereby overcome the problem. The Health & Safety Executive and businesslink.gov.uk were asked to undertake this work, which has led to the development of what is now the health and safety performance indicator.

Businesslink.gov.uk and the Health & Safety Executive are particularly grateful to the Associa-tion of British Insurers, the British Insurance Brokers Association and the Federation of Small Businesses for their help in the development. The indicator is a self-assessment tool designed to give businesses a measure of how well they are handling health and safety issues. It works by asking a series of questions on key hazards that most small to medium-sized businesses encounter and the frequency of incidents relating to these hazards.

The indicator is not a comprehensive audit tool. It only considers the top 10 hazards that our developers found most small/medium businesses encounter. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, you need to consider all the risks that your workers may face while at work. It is not designed to deal with special hazards faced by particular industries. During initial research 35 workplace hazards were identified. These were then assessed against the main causes of

injury and employer liability claims. This led to the focus on ten hazards covered by the indicator

A score out of 10 is calculated for key hazards that most small to medium-sized businesses en-counter and how often any incidents happen. A score of 10 is the best possible result and 0 the worst. As more businesses complete the indicator, however, you will be able to see how you perform in relation to them. For instance you many have scored 7, but if the rest of your industry is scoring 9, you are obviously lagging behind. 'Good' scores will vary between industry sectors and types.

The benchmarking facility allows you to compare your results with other businesses. You first pick the business sector, business type, number of employees and location to see how your performance compares against others, if you have completed the questionnaire. You will see your results mapped against those of others in the industry type you selected.

If you are using the benchmarking facility without having filled in a questionnaire, you won't see any individual business' results, but you will see the general results for the particular industry type you chose. You can benchmark as many times as you like, using any combination of loca-tion, industry type and business size. Only you can see your results and the system is secure and protected by user password.

3.24 Step Change in Safety: Leading Performance Indicators.

Step Change in Safety is the UK based partnership with the remit to make the UK the safest Oil and Gas Exploration and Production province in the world. Once achieved, Step Change intend to maintain UK as the safest place to work.

This vision will be achieved through cooperation, collaboration, sharing and adopting of best practices and learnings. The Step Change website is a key resource in enabling that sharing and, in the spirit of co-operation, they invite all to use the website to share and contribute re-gardless of industry or country. Anyone may access all parts of the site and read and download resources, but will need to register to contribute news items or to take part in the discussion fo-rums.

Step Change in Safety was founded in 1997 by the Oil and Gas industry trade associations with the aim of reducing all the UK offshore Oil and Gas industry injury rate by 50%.By 2002 a new vision was created: “The UK is the safest place to work in the worldwide oil and gas industry by 2010” and Step Change moved to operate under the PILOT umbrella.

Membership of Step Change now includes the UK Health and Safety Executive and the Trade Unions. It is this broad stakeholder base that makes the Step Change group effective across the whole industry. In 2010, launched the five year Strategic Plan 2010-2015, setting out how to go about making the UK the safest oil and gas province in the world.

3.25 AIChE: CCPS Recommendations for Process Safety Leading & Lagging Indicators.

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with more than 40,000 members from over 90 countries. AIChE has the breadth of resources and expertise you need—whether you’re in core process industries or emerging areas, such as nanobiotechnology. As a member, you can access infor-

mation on recognized and promising chemical engineering processes and methods. The Centre for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS®) was established in 1985 by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for the express purpose of assisting industry in avoiding or mitigat-ing catastrophic chemical accidents. More than 100 corporate members around the world drive the activities of CCPS.

An essential element of any improvement program is the measure of existing and future per-formance. Therefore, to continuously improve upon process safety performance, it is essential that companies in the chemical and petroleum industries implement effective leading and lag-ging process safety metrics. The document `The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) : CCPS recommendations for process safety leading and lagging indicators. New York: AIChE, 2008` describes the recommendations assembled by the Centre for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) Process Safety Metric committee for a common set of company and industry leading and lagging metrics. Within this document is a description of three types of metrics:

“Lagging” Metrics – a retrospective set of metrics that are based on incidents that meet the threshold of severity that should be reported as part of the industry-wide process safety metric.

“Leading” Metrics – a forward looking set of metrics which indicate the performance of the key work processes, operating discipline, or layers of protection that prevent incidents.

“Near Miss” and other internal Lagging Metrics – the description of less severe incidents (i.e., below the threshold for inclusion in the industry lagging metric), or unsafe conditions which acti-vated one or more layers of protection. Although these events are actual events (i.e., a “lagging” metric), they are generally considered to be a good indicator of conditions which could ultimately lead to a severe incident.

Lagging metrics

The BP US Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel (“Baker Panel”) and US Chemical Safety Board each recommended improved industry-wide process safety metrics in their final reports dealing with the 2005 explosion at the BP Texas City refinery. CCPS member compa-nies also share the vision of a new industry-wide process safety metric, including a common set of definitions and threshold levels that will serve individual companies and industry as a whole by providing a mechanism to: • indicate changes in company or industry performance, to be used to drive continuous im-provement in performance; • perform company-to-company or industry segment-to-segment benchmarking; • serve as a leading indicator of potential process safety issues which could result in a catastro-phic event

Question 9.

This audit system is a concept and product of the British Safety Council

Multiple Choice (HP)

Answer 1: ISRS

Response 1:

Jump 1: This page

Answer 2: 5 Star Audit

Response 2:

Jump 2: Next page

Answer 3: CHASE

Response 3:

Jump 3: This page

Answer 4: HS(G)65

Response 4:

Jump 4: This page

Question 10.

Step Change in Safety is the UK based partnership with the remit to make the UK the safest Oil and Gas Exploration and Production province in the world?

True/False

Answer 1: True

Response 1:

Jump 1: Next page

Answer 2: False

Response 2:

Jump 2: This page

4.0 Reviewing Health & Safety Performance

Reviewing performance

Reviewing is the process of making judgements about the adequacy of performance and taking decisions about the nature and timing of the actions necessary to remedy deficiencies. Organi-sations need to have feedback to see if the health and safety management system is working effectively as designed. The main sources of information come from measuring activities and from audits of the RCSs and workplace precautions. Other internal and external influences in-clude delayering, new legislation or changes in current good practice. Any of these can result in redesign or amendment of any parts of the health and safety management system or a change in overall direction or objectives. Suitable performance standards should be established to iden-tify the responsibilities, timing and systems involved.

Feeding information on success and failure back into the system is an essential element in mo-tivating employees to maintain and improve performance. Successful organisations emphasise positive reinforcement and concentrate on encouraging progress on those indicators which demonstrate improvements in risk control.

The aims of the review process reflect the objectives of the planning process. Reviews will need to examine:

• the operation and maintenance of the system as designed; and • the design, development and installation of the health and safety management system in changing circumstances.

Reviewing should be a continuous process undertaken at different levels within the organisation. It includes responses:

• by first-line supervisors or other managers to remedy failures to implement workplace precau-tions which they observe in the course of routine activities; • to remedy sub-standard performance identified by active and reactive monitoring; • to the assessment of plans at individual, departmental, site, group or organisational level; • to the results of audits.

Review plans may include: • monthly reviews of individuals, supervisors or sections; • three-monthly reviews of departments; • annual reviews of sites or of the organisation as a whole.

Organisations should decide on the frequency of the reviews at each level and devise reviewing activities to suit the measuring and auditing activities. In all reviewing activity the result should be specific remedial actions which: • establish who is responsible for implementation; and • set deadlines for completion.

These actions form the basis of effective follow-up, which should be closely monitored. The speed and nature of response to any situation should be determined by the degree of risk involved and the availability of resources. The application of risk assessment principles can con-tribute to decision-making by identifying relative priorities. Reviewing demands the exercise of good judgement, and people responsible for reviewing may need specific training to achieve competence in this type of task.

Key performance indicators for reviewing overall performance can include: • assessment of the degree of compliance with health and safety system requirements; • identification of areas where the health and safety system is absent or inadequate (those ar-eas where further action is necessary to develop the total health and safety management sys-tem); • assessment of the achievement of specific objectives and plans; and • accident, ill health and incident data accompanied by analysis of both the immediate and un-derlying causes, trends and common features. These indicators are consistent with the development of a positive health and safety culture. They emphasise achievement and success rather than merely measuring failure by looking only at accident data.

Organisations may also 'benchmark' their performance against other organisations by compar-ing: • accident rates with those organisations in the same industry which use similar business proc-esses and experience similar risks; and • management practices and techniques with other organisations in any industry to provide a different perspective and new insights on health and safety management systems.

As part of a demonstration of corporate responsibility, more organisations are mentioning health and safety performance in their published annual reports.

The review of performance can be both formal and informal. Formal reviews are those which have had processes established by the business or organisation and which are the same when-ever they are carried out and by whomever. They will have protocols, paperwork, records and agreed procedures.

Informal reviews are those which arise out of situations that are in themselves unpredictable. An incident may have taken place, or a near-miss that has led to an observation by a worker. It may be that something has been noticed as a result of health surveillance which, whilst not the origi-nal intention of the surveillance can give indications that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. For example, if workers are being checked for chromium-related dermatitis and it is noticed that they seem to have musculo-skeletal problems with their backs, this might prompt an examination of their work patterns to see if the problems are being caused by that.

This can prompt a discussion which, whilst it is not scheduled or agreed, is nevertheless a valu-able opportunity to take a look at the way that safety is managed and which will, if handled cor-rectly, generate useful insights into what needs to be done to improve matters. Equal value should be attached to both formal and informal reviews since they both have contributions to make to the overall safety performance and to ignore or downplay the informal may lead to

these contributions being missed.

4.1 Video: Presenting & Communicating Findings.

http://www.sheilds-elearning.co.uk/file.php/4/videos/Presenting_Communicating_findings.flv