The concept of safety culture and its various components

This chapter explores safety culture and examines key factors that affect the culture, both positive and negative, in order to understand how better to manage both general safety and fire safety within the workplace. 

In terms of safety culture, there is a range of definitions cited by public enquires and research bodies. These definitions invariably cite poor management control as a key factor leading directly to serious accidents or disasters. For example, the absence of a safety culture is said to have played a major part in the nuclear reactor disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. 

The team in control of the reactor, being influenced by the need to complete an unusual test quickly, removed layer after layer of the safety controls - introduced to keep them safe - in order to carry out a test. This resulted in the reactor being operated under conditions which gave rise to serious instability in the reactor, resulting in the disaster. 

The subsequent enquiry found that the control team operated in a managerial culture that failed to discourage the taking of risks where other priorities intervened, e.g. the need to complete the test quickly . 

In order to be truly effective in the management of fire or health and safety, the organisation must develop what has become known as a positive safety culture based on proactive management of safety issues. 

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