Health and Safety
Health and safety is a key priority for all divisional and subsidiary managing directors, in particular in the Energy and Environmental divisions where the potential impacts are significant given the nature of the businesses and the products handled. Line managers are responsible for health and safety performance, supported by experienced health and safety professionals.
Near Miss Reporting
A near miss is any situation, behaviour or condition that has the potential to cause an actual incident. As part of our effort to reduce accidents or other losses, employees are actively encouraged to recognise and report near misses. In the past year over 8,000 near misses were reported, including unsafe work practices, substandard housekeeping, defective equipment and unsafe deliveries. Near miss reports are appropriately reviewed and actioned as every report is an opportunity to improve standards and prevent an incident occurring. Over time we believe that this focus, in addition to other health and safety risk management processes, will reduce injury rates, minimise losses and contribute positively to the overall performance of our businesses.
Health and Safety Performance
Health and safety performance is reported monthly to divisional boards and quarterly to the DCC plc Board. Individual subsidiaries use a range of indicators to measure health and safety performance, including both lagging indicators, which measure failures of management systems, for example lost time injury rates, and leading indicators, which monitor the successful implementation of safety management processes, for example performance of safety critical equipment when tested.
Lost time injury rates are recorded at Group level for the operations within the scope of this report. In the reporting period, the lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) decreased from 2.5 per 200,000 hours worked to 2.39. At the same time the lost time injury severity rate (LTISR) increased from 48 to 53 days lost per 200,000 hours worked reflecting, on average, more days lost per accident. The improvement in the LTIFR was primarily driven by good performance from the Energy and Environmental divisions. The increase in the LTISR is driven by a relatively small number of accidents resulting in very long periods of time off. In the current year, active case management to facilitate the full recovery of injured parties and their timely return to work will be a focus at a number of subsidiaries, in addition to a renewed focus on the prevention of accidents in the first instance.
Process Safety
Process safety focuses on preventing unintentional releases of products resulting in fire and/or explosion causing a major accident. The provision of an effective process safety management system is a key requirement to minimise the likelihood of a major incident and to meet the safety and environmental standards for fuel storage sites as determined by the Process Safety Leadership Group, which was established to complete the implementation of the Buncefield Major Incident Investigation Board’s recommendations. GB Oils is implementing a competence improvement plan for its staff involved with major hazards. In addition, a programme of upgrades has been agreed with the regulator to further reduce the risk and /or consequence of the major hazards at oil terminals, in particular by improving bunding and overspill protection.
Safety Auditing
The International Safety Rating System (ISRS) tool, developed by DNV, a leading risk management company, is used in the EHS audits carried out at our Energy and Environmental subsidiaries, which present a higher EHS risk profile than other subsidiaries. ISRS addresses a range of management processes, driving continuous review of current policies and procedures to develop efficient and effective management systems. The ISRS audit identifies opportunities to further improve processes and quantitatively measures progress over time. With an increased emphasis on leadership, communication and employee involvement, our expectation is that our safety culture will improve and deliver tangible business benefits.
The Safety Climate Tool, developed by the Health and Safety Laboratory10, has been used at a number of subsidiaries to objectively assess employees views on safety culture. These surveys provide a measure of the degree to which company management has been successful in raising safety awareness and communicating their commitment to high safety standards. Opportunities for improvement.
Notes
8 A Lost Time Injury is defined as any injury that results in at least one day off work following the day of the accident.
9 Company employees only, contractors are not included in lost time injury rates.
10 The Health and Safety Laboratory is an in-house agency of the UK Health and Safety Executive with a mission to directly help organisations become healthier, safer and therefore, more productive places in which to work.