Governing Safety Management

Abstract

It is a requirement of UK law that organisations discharge the Heath and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Duties within the act include ensuring that as far as is reasonably practicable an organisation’s undertakings do not expose persons to unacceptable risk. The Act requires an organisation to declare intent in this regard through a company level policy that must be bought off by the organisation’s senior management. In order for senior management to be comfortable that they are in fact discharging their duties with regards to the Act the effectiveness of systems that implement this policy must be measured and corrective action taken where deficiencies are identified. The behaviour of senior management should therefore influence an organisation’s approach to safety management. This influence is both in terms of policy setting and in terms of measurement, or governance, as the business responds to changing context. In this paper the author identifies a number of principles that can be used by senior management to influence how safety management is carried out with a view to supporting the implementation of the Heath and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The principles have been drawn from direct experience of assessing industrial systems for engineering governance and of identifying common vulnerabilities that organisations face.