| Details: | Step Change in Safety, the UK offshore oil and gas industry's flagship safety initiative, has defined its key work areas for 2010 to include greater emphasis on workforce engagement, strong leadership and personal responsibility which could greatly improve the safety of all who work offshore in the UK.
Speaking at Oil & Gas UK's final Aberdeen breakfast briefing of 2009, sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland, on 25 November at Aberdeen Beach Ballroom, the two co-chairs of Step Change in Safety, Gordon Ballard, chairman of Schlumberger Oilfield UK plc; and John Forrest, vice president of Talisman Energy (UK) Limited stated that after 12 years in operation, Step Change in Safety is now at a crossroads where it has to take its next big step on the journey to becoming the safest region in the worldwide oil and gas industry.
In his speech, Gordon Ballard stated that Step Change's key activities, the learning from past incidents and sharing of best practice, are still key to continuous improvement, but warned that personal responsibility and cooperation are also vital to achieving the organisation's vision of becoming the safest region in the world: "We have a moral duty to learn from the past and share this learning. Past accidents and near misses are an invaluable source of information that, if acted upon, can reduce the chances of somebody being injured. As an industry we must actively seek to share this information and learn from it.
"However, to bring about further significant improvements in health and safety performance we need everyone to work together towards a set of common goals. For that to become a reality, each and every party within our industry must accept this responsibility. The industry must strive to develop a genuine management/workforce partnership based on trust, respect and co-operation. With such a partnership in place, a culture can evolve in which health and safety problems are jointly solved and in which concerns, ideas and solutions are freely shared and acted upon.
"Those of us involved in Step Change understand and can see the value which has been generated by the organisation: the closer relationships between the many and varied partners who work side by side in the UKCS and onshore; the shared learning; the forums which bring management, workforce and trade unions together to discuss issues and possible solutions.
"Those achievements are based on our beliefs that all workers have a fundamental right to work in an environment where risks to their health and safety are properly controlled; that everyone has a contribution to make; that we each have an individual personal responsibility for health and safety; and that industry cooperation is key to achieving our vision."
John Forrest then looked at the future of Step Change in Safety in more detail, outlining the main work fronts that Step Change will tackle in 2010 and emphasising the importance of visible safety leadership: "We have taken time to review our incident databases, paying particular attention to incident causes. This has validated that we are focused on the right areas for safety improvement. Preventing major accidents is at the top of our agenda and the work of the Asset Integrity Group will involve getting leaders and engineers out to site to promote the benefits of educated eyes visiting the sharp end of our business.
"We need this strong and visible leadership; the importance of actually showing up is huge. Those site visits, whether its offshore, onshore, the workshop, on the vessel, or at the heliport, are so important. If you as a leader are not obviously passionate about safety improvement, then dont expect your people to be."
John Forrest added that in 2010, changes are planned for the Step Change Leadership Team: "It is our intention to modify the composition of the Leadership Team so that both the shop floor and site supervisory and management levels are directly represented on the Step Change Leadership Team. This would supplement the very constructive involvement of the Trade Unions that we already enjoy. Certain industry sectors are not as well represented as we would like and we intend to address this. For example the aviation sector does not have a seat at the Leadership Team, yet it is a key sector when it comes to safety, as the tragic accident in April this year demonstrated. Similarly we need to ensure the Southern North Sea and also onshore work sites have a voice and influence on safety matters."
To conclude, John Forrest reiterated the need for collaboration across all areas of industry to work to improve safety through 2010 and beyond. He said: "We are all in this together. Yes, Step Change in Safety can facilitate safety improvement across industry, but the big lever is held by us all. The success or otherwise of our efforts will be determined by our willingness to take a personal lead in implementing safety improvement."
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Rachel Tawse
Oil & Gas UK Media Relations
Tel: 01224 577279
Email: rtawse@oilandgasuk.co.uk
25/11/09 |
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