Safety management accountability

There was a lack of safety management accountability and oversight. 

Accountability is the obligation to answer for one s performance with respect to expectations, goals, and objectives. It is an important element of an effective process safety management system. To improve safety, the risk associated with human errors must be reduced. The work situation is the predominant cause of human errors and management has control over the work situation. 

This should provide direction as to how operations staff, emergency responders, and the public should respond to a potential toxic release (e.g., chemical plumes released), including facility evacuation, personnel accountability, proper personal protective equipment (PPE) as dictated by the Risk Management Program and Process Safety Management Plan, and whether the nearby public should be in-place sheltered or evacuated. 

One of the six elements of Responsible Care is the Codes of Management Practice, and one of the codes is the Process Safety Code of Management Practices (34). This code emphasizes management commitment and accountability, information sharing, and community relations, but also includes 11 of the 14 specific elements of the legislated process safety management standards developed later. 

Both internal and external metrics are valuable. Internal metrics provide information to those throughout the organization with the information needed to evaluate the progress and effectiveness of the process safety management system. External metrics allow outside stakeholders to evaluate the organization s performance and to hold those within the organization accountable for unacceptable performance, (See Chapter 7 for a discussion on accountability.)... 

Besides these methods in a distributed, cooperative environment, consequent safety management has to be taken into account. Therefore, a role- and process-related access mechanism must be implemented that allows the administrator to define restrictions of modeling related to roles. The application of such technologies enables a company to manage outsourced development services. 

Governing the Safety Management System 8.6.1 Establishing Accountability... 

In 2011, the roof accidents held the most proportion of the whole coalmine accident cases and caused the highest death toll, account for 47.2% of the total accidents and 33.7% of the all death toll (State Administration of Coal Mine Safety 2012), the proportion are more than 1/3. Apparently, roof accident should be regarded as the main object of coalmine safety management. 

Besides setting the culture through their own behavior, managers need to establish the organizational safety policy and create a safety control structure with appropriate responsibilities, accountability and authority, safety controls, and feedback channels. Management must also establish a safety management plan and ensure that a safety information system and continual learning and improvement processes are in place and effective. 

Similarly, corporate governance principles also establish management accountability to these financial stakeholders, and causes companies to take the pragmatic step of securing insurance coverage for losses and liabilities which could arise from accidents and other mishaps. This induces companies to maintain their safety performance at a level sufficient to convince insurers to provide sufficient coverage at... 

Directing, developing, or helping to develop management accountability and audit programs tliat assess safety performance of entire systems, organizations, processes, and operations or their components and involve both deterrents and incentives. 

The cornerstone of BBS is the principle that most accidents are caused by unsafe acts of workers. Traditional safety management theory (as developed by Heinrich, yet based on no scientific proof) is that management should focus on unsafe actions since they account for 85 to 95 percent of accidents. 

As a part Peterson s program, a manual is provided, the purpose of which is to describe how to use CoreMedia s Dan Petersen Safety Perception (SPS) software program package. Its purpose is to identify shortcomings in safety management systems and to provide information to management on incorporating improvements into the accountability system. 

The safety and health of employees at the workplace is the ultimate responsibility of the management of the organization. Even though it is generally accepted that all share a role in safety, the ultimate accountability lies with all levels of the leadership. With this in mind, the implementation of a safety management system with the intent of changing the safety culture can only be successful if initiated, led, and supported by all management. 

Management now sets standards of accountability by delegating authority to certain positions for ongoing safety work to be done. Coordination and management of the safety management system needs to be allocated to certain departments and individuals, and this standard dictates who must do what, and by when, to run the system. 

Holding managers accountable for occupational health and safety in all of our facilities... 

Employees should be empowered to take part in safety decisions and to participate in the safety management system. Part of this is the establishment of employee authority, safety responsibility, and accountability for all levels. One of the best methods for employee empowerment is a facilitated workshop where management is encouraged to talk to the employees. This should be held in a safe space. The facilitator asks employees to list the things that could be done to improve safety at the plant, and what hampers safety in the workplace. Once a list is compiled, the attendees are asked to list what actions are needed to rectify the identified stumbling blocks and also to assign responsibility for those actions. Once the critical few hazards have been isolated, commitments are made to take action to rectify either the behaviors or conditions to eliminate the listed potential accidents. It is simply a matter of the employees tell us how we can improve safety. ... 

---