IA4 Flashcards
As the Health and Safety Advisor to a large organization, you have decided to develop and introduce an in-house auditing program to assess the effectiveness of the organization’s health and safety management arrangements.
Describe the organizational and planning issues to be addressed in the development of the audit program.
The organizational and planning issues that need to be addressed include: ✓ consideration of the logistics and resources required ✓ obtaining the support and commitment of senior managers and other key stakeholders ✓ the nature, scale and frequency of the auditing relative to the level of risk involved ✓ the standards against which the management arrangements were to be audited ✓ identification of the key elements of the audit process such as the planning, interviews and
verification, feedback routes and the preparation and presentation of the final report ✓ recognition of the need to develop audit protocols and consider issues such as scoring or the
use of proprietary software ✓ the types of auditing (such as comprehensive, horizontal or vertical slicing) ✓ scope of the audit (such as management system elements or selected performance
standards) ✓ use of a single auditor or audit teams ✓ training of auditors and briefing of those members of the organization who were likely to be
affected.
(a) Explain the objectives of:
(i) active health and safety
monitoring
(ii) reactive health and safety
monitoring
(b) Outline FIVE active health and safety monitoring methods.
(c) Outline FIVE reactive health and safety monitoring methods.
(i) The objective of active monitoring is to give an overview of the strategies currently in place to control risk and to provide information on how the system operates in practice. It can thus identify risks of accidents, injuries, ill-health, and loss and by ensuring appropriate health and safety systems and procedures are in place, allows the initiative to be taken before things go wrong.
(ii) The objective of reactive monitoring is to measure historic performance by looking at events that have occurred and by identifying the consequences of a hazard and the cause of failure, to establish what systems and procedures can and should be put in place to prevent a recurrence. It also provides data that may be used to assess and compare trends over time.
Both active and reactive monitoring may be used to measure legal compliance or non-compliance and providing a basis for continual improvement may demonstrate commitment on the part of management and improve the morale of the workforce.
(b) Active monitoring methods include safety inspections, safety surveys, audits,
sampling, environmental monitoring, health surveillance and benchmarking.
✓ safety inspections are regular and scheduled activities identifying existing conditions and comparing them with agreed performance objectives ✓ an audit involves a comprehensive and often an independent examination of all aspects of an organization’s health and safety performance against stated objectives.
(c) Reactive monitoring methods include, amongst others, accident investigation, the investigation of near-miss incidents, ill-health reports, enforcement action and the number of civil claims, property damage, complaints from workers, and the costs to the employer that might be revealed through using these methods.
✓ using the investigation of accidents to determine their root causes and indicate why the standard of performance was sub-standard ✓ a study of the action taken by the enforcement authorities together with the number of civil claims to point to specific breaches of legislation and to indicate the need for improvements to be made in the management of health and safety.
Outline the issues that should be considered when planning a health and safety inspection program.
issues that should be considered when planning a health and safety inspection program include:
✓ composition and competence of the inspection team ✓ the specific areas of the workplace to be inspected ✓ the frequency and timings of the inspections which may have to be more frequent in higher risk areas, with a decision being made as to whether the inspections would take place at peak working times or during slow periods and whether they should be planned or unannounced ✓ the method of carrying out the inspections and whether checklists should be
prepared and if so by whom ✓ the possible need to provide personal protective equipment for the inspection
team ✓ the involvement of the workforce in consultation on the proposed program ✓ the need to obtain senior management support and commitment for the inspection program ✓ consulting previous inspection reports and researching applicable legislation and standards ✓ deciding on procedures to be followed after the inspection to ensure appropriate remedial action is taken.
In relation to health and safety monitoring systems, explain the differences between: (a) active and reactive performance measures (b) qualitative and quantitative performance measures
(a) An explanation of active performance measures should include that they are forward-looking measures of system strength prior to accidents and incidents. An explanation of reactive performance measures should include that they are measurements of system failures or weaknesses following an unwanted event
(b) Qualitative performance measures rely on subjective comparisons rather than the precise data measurements required for quantitative performance measures.
(a) Outline how safety tours could contribute to improving health and safety performance in an organization.
(b) Outline how safety tours could contribute to improving health and safety culture in an organization.
(a) Activities that could contribute to improving health and safety performance include:
✓ the identification of compliance or non-compliance with performance standards ✓ talking to workers during tours ✓ influencing behavior. (b) Activities that could contribute to improving health and safety culture
include:
✓ the management showing commitment to health and safety ✓ taking remedial actions ✓ communication ✓ the removal of unsafe behavior ✓ the involvement of workers in tours improving ownership.
