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Safety and environmental standards for fuel storage sites
Final report
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13 When the organisation uses the services of others these additional requirements should be
used, commensurate to the task they perform.
14 The Baker Panel Report includes a questionnaire used for a process safety culture survey, ie
it is about process safety, and not personal safety, and could be adapted as required for a review
of safety culture/climate.
15 The CSB Investigation Report includes an analysis of safety culture, in relation to the Texas
City explosion, and recommendations for improvement.
16
Reducing error and influencing behaviour
HSG48 summarises the organisational factors associated
with a health and safety culture, and proposes a step-by-step approach to improving this culture.
17 HSE’s Human Factors Toolkit Briefing Note 7 is a concise briefing note providing a useful
summary of the characteristics of a healthy safety culture.
18
Leadership for the major hazard industries
INDG277
78
provides very useful guidance for executive
directors and other senior managers reporting to board members. It is divided into four sections:
Health and safety culture.
■
■
Leadership by example.
■
■
Systems.
■
■
Workforce.
■
■
Each section consists of brief key points followed by more detailed explanation, to refresh
knowledge of effective health and safety leadership and to challenge continuous improvement of
health and safety performance.
19 HSE’s Research Report RR367
79
provides a review of safety culture and safety climate
literature. It is a comprehensive research report that highlights key aspects of a good safety
culture, as outlined below:
Leadership:
■
■
Key criteria of successful leadership, to promote a positive safety culture, are:
giving safety a high priority in the organisation’s business objectives;
––
high visibility of management’s commitment to safety;
––
effective safety management systems.
––
Communication:
■
■
A positive safety culture requires effective channels for top-down, bottom-
up and horizontal communications on safety matters.
Involvement of staff:
■
■
Active employee participation is a positive step towards controlling
hazards. In particular:
ownership for safety, particularly with provision of safety training;
––
safety specialists should play an advisory or supporting role;
––
it should be easy to report safety concerns;
––
feedback mechanisms should be in place to inform staff about any decisions that are likely
––
to affect them.
A learning culture:
■
■
A learning culture, vital to the success of the safety culture within an
organisation:
enables organisations to identify, learn and change unsafe conditions;
––
enables in-depth analysis of incidents and near misses with the sharing of feedback and
––
lessons;
requires involvement at all levels.
––
A just and open culture:
■
■
Companies or organisations with a blame culture over-emphasise
individual blame for human error at the expense of correcting defective systems:
organisations should move from a blame culture to a just culture;
––
those investigating incidents should have a good understanding of the mechanism for
––
human error;