Maintaining an excellent safety record has for a long time been a major area of sustained attention across the Group. Health and safety is a core value for Babcock: senior management bonuses are at risk if performance is unsatisfactory.
Building on the work started with the 2008/09 safety cultural assessment, and following the acquisition of VT, our health and safety priority has been refreshed and re-emphasised, and the governance structure relating to health and safety management has been reviewed and clarified:
- The Group Safety Leadership Team (SLT): composed of the Chief Executive and the Group's senior management team, the SLT is responsible for developing, agreeing and reviewing the Group's strategic approach to safety and providing leadership on safety across the Group.
- The Corporate Safety Steering Group (CSSG): composed of the Chief Executive and health and safety professionals from all four divisions, the CSSG reviews performance and trends, assesses the impact of legislative changes, acts on the output of the SLT and shares best practice.
- Divisional Safety Leadership Teams and Safety Steering Groups ensure that the Group health and safety policy, strategy and initiatives are relayed and implemented within the businesses.
- The annual Group Safety Conference promotes the Group safety vision, the sharing of best practice and rewards notable achievements.
Priority continues to be given to addressing behavioural and cultural attitudes underlying unsafe acts, as can be seen from the case studies in this section. This year has also seen a particular focus at Group and divisional level on the interaction between safety and leadership, especially the role of first line management, with a number of initiatives and training programmes focusing on this.
After their successful launch last year, Babcock's annual Safety Awards are in their second year and have seen an increase in the number of nominations coming up from business units, with a new award category being added specifically to recognise and reward our apprentices for safe behaviours.
Responding to EU regulatory requirements
In response to the accident at Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011, the European Council declared that the safety of all EU nuclear plants should be reviewed on the basis of a comprehensive and transparent risk assessment (stress tests).
The European Nuclear Safety Regulatory Group (ENSREG) developed the tests that will be assessed by independent national authorities (regulators). The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR) told UK licensees and authorisees to undertake the stress tests in accordance with the ENSREG guidance.
Babcock owns and operates two nuclear licenced sites, Devonport Royal Dockyard and Rosyth Business Park and has therefore been required to undertake stress tests at these sites.
CLICK HERE for the summary report of the stress tests that have been undertaken at the Devonport and Rosyth sites.
Performance
As a result of the sustained effort committed to the continual improvement of health and safety, year-on-year performance has improved, as reflected by the fall of just over 20% in both our total injuries rate and RIDDOR rate.
We are also increasing our focus on near-miss incidents as an integral part of preventing accidents and injuries. Work is currently under way to improve the reporting of the severity of near-misses to give extra depth to the data being analysed and assist management in focusing on addressing areas which could lead to serious accidents before they happen.