ND Unit A - Element A3: Measuring and Reviewing Health and Safety Performance Flashcards
List three purposes for performance measurement.
• Assess the effectiveness and appropriateness of health and safety objectives and arrangements in terms of:
– Hardware (plant, premises, substances).
– Software (people, procedures, systems).
• Measure and reward success
• Use the results as a basis for making recommendations for a review of current management systems.
• Maintain and improve health and safety performance.
Give one example each of an active measure, reactive measure, objective measure and subjective measure of health and safety performance.
Active measures include inspection reports, safety tour reports, audit data.
Reactive measures include accident and ill-health data, complaints, near misses.
Objective measures include number of prosecutions over the last five years, number of risk assessments completed/ reviewed during last year, number of individuals trained in a specific safety-related course.
Subjective measures include effectiveness of safety communication, presence of a good safety culture.
What are the limitations of accident and ill- health data as a performance measure?
Limitations of accident and ill-health data:
• Numbers tend to be small and so variations year to year may not be significant.
• Data, especially relating to ill health, may reflect working conditions from at least several years previously.
• Under-reporting - incidents to which the consequences may not be immediately obvious may not get reported, or reporting may be implicitly discouraged to demonstrate an apparent good performance.
List the main measurement techniques available for measuring health and safety performance in the workplace.
The main measurement techniques available for measuring health and safety performance in the workplace are: audits, inspections, safety tours, safety sampling and safety surveys.
Explain the difference between an internal and an external audit.
An internal audit is conducted by personnel who work for the organisation; an external audit is carried out by a person(s) independent of the organisation who has no vested interest in the outcome and can therefore be seen to be more objective.
Explain the term “benchmarking”.
Benchmarking is the process of comparing your own practices and performance measures with organisations that display excellence and whom you might wish to emulate.
Which two sources of information does the review process use?
The two sources of information that the review process uses are routine monitoring data and audit data.
