Health And Safety In Quarrying
This paper is the second in a series of five based on a CD-ROM of lecture and training material covering the fundamentals of health and safety management. The CD-ROM was prepared by the Camborne School of Mines on behalf of EPIC (NTO) Ltd and the Health & Safety Executive, and distributed to all providers of quarry-related courses in higher education. This paper looks in detail at occupational health and safety (OH&S) management systems, starting by outlining the overall elements of managing safety, highlighting recent developments including certification of management systems, and then summarizing the individual elements that make up such a system, based on OHSAS 18001.
The importance of managing health and safety has been highlighted in recent official reports of major accidents both in the UK and overseas, and has received increasing emphasis in OH&S legislation. As a result organizations have extended the focus of health and safety beyond the traditional emphasis on technical safeguards and taking action reactively (ie in response to accidents), towards a more proactive approach and focusing on management practices, procedures and policy. At its simplest, health and safety management involves the following:
- a healthy and safe workplace and working environment
- identification of hazards and assessment and control of risks
- active involvement in health and safety matters by managers, supervisors and employees
- provision of OH&S information and training for employees at all levels.
In the 1970s and early 1980s a great deal of emphasis was placed on safety programmes consisting of elements which focused, to some degree, on the ‘management’ side of safety. However, the focus was more on compliance with the standards within each programme element, with little interaction between the different elements. For example, one of the elements could focus on ‘task observations’ and compliance would be measured in terms of the number of observations carried out, rather than in terms of quality and effectiveness and feedback into other parts of the system. The term ‘health and safety management system’ is used more to describe the ‘systems approach’ to managing health and safety. This comes at a time when organizations are using similar approaches to manage other aspects of their businesses, including quality and environment.
The British Standards Institute (BSI, 1996) defines an OH&S management system as ‘part of the overall management system that facilitates the management of the OH&S risks associated with the business of the organization. This includes the organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for developing and achieving, reviewing and maintaining the organization’s OH&S policy’.
A systems approach
According to Dalrymple et al (1998), a systems approach to management is based on system theories developed primarily in the natural and social sciences. Four elements which are common to general systems theories are input, process, output and feedback, as shown in figure 1. Systems are also classed
as being either open or closed.
An open system is one where there are identifiable pathways where the system interacts with the external environment and is subject to external influences. In health and safety these influences include legislation, public opinion and the economy.
Closed systems, on the other hand, do not interact with the environment and so their ability to adapt or respond to changing internal conditions is limited.
The health and safety management system approach is an open system, while safety programmes are closed.
HSG65
In 1991 the HSE first published a document entitled ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’ (HSE, 1997) which was designed to be a practical guide for businesses that wanted to improve their health and safety performance. This approach to health and safety management has six overriding elements, as shown in figure 2.
The key elements of successful health and safety management are as follows (HSE, 1997; HSE, 1999):
Policy
Effective health and safety policies set a clear direction for the organization to follow.
Organizing
An effective management structure with arrangements in place for delivering the policy. This includes the allocation of responsibilities, ensuring the competence of staff, good co-operation between individuals and groups, and communication both up and down the hierarchy.
Planning
Planning for health and safety involves setting objectives, identifying hazards and assessing risks, implementing standards of performance and developing a positive culture.
Measuring performance
Performance is measured against agreed standards to reveal when and where improvement is needed. This is done through active monitoring, before things go wrong, involving regular inspection and checking to ensure that standards are being implemented and management controls are working; and reactive monitoring through accident and incident information and investigation.
Auditing and reviewing performance
Auditing complements monitoring but focuses on the system to ensure that the policy, organization and systems are effective.
BS 8800
BS 8800 produced by the BSI was published in 1996 as a practical guidance document. It is intended to be suitable for both large and small organizations covering a wide range of manufacturing and service industries and gives advice on:
- how to evaluate shortcomings with an existing occupational health and safety management ??system (OHSMS)
- what an adequate OHSMS should consist of
- how to progress from an existing system to an adequate system.
BS 8800 contains guidance on each of the elements within each of the two management system models. The document also has a number of annexes giving more detailed information on common aspects such as ‘risk assessment’, ‘setting objectives’ and ‘measuring performance’.
Standardization
The fact that an organization claims to operate a management system is not a guarantee that the system is adequate or effective. In recent years a great deal of emphasis has been placed on standards and standardization. One of the main reasons for this is that most major companies in the industrially developed world are multinational and favour a standardized approach to aspects of their businesses. Over the last decade the International Standards Organization (ISO) has produced two major standards for organizations, namely:
- ISO 9000 series: Quality Management Systems.
- ISO 14000 series: Environmental Management Systems.
A standard is defined by the BSI as ‘a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context’.
Such standards are voluntary and are designed to be externally verified by nationally accredited bodies. It is argued that companies that register with these schemes will experience market advantages and a better relationship with regulatory authorities, investors and insurance companies, as well as financial benefits through greater efficiency (BS 8800 is not a certifiable standard, although produced by the BSI).
Within the 9000 and 14000 series’ mentioned above there are two types of ‘standards’ document, namely specifications and guidance documents.
A specification is a ‘detailed set of requirements to be satisfied by a product, material, process or system, indicating the procedures for checking conformity to these requirements’. Specifications are written in such a way as to allow conformity to be verified by any first party (supplier), second party (purchaser) or third party (independent certifier), typically by using ‘shall’ statements such as ‘the organization shall….’
A guidance document provides advice rather than a set of verifiable requirements and is designed as an internal management tool. It gives guidance on the requirements of the specification.
It has long been recognized that a health and safety management system is analogous to an environmental management system (hence the inclusion of both models in BS 8800) and much debate has taken place around the world on whether such a certifiable standard should be produced for a health and safety management system. In 1997 the ISO decided not to proceed with the development of a formal international standard on health and safety management systems (Dalrymple et al, 1998). As a result a number of individual country based standards have been produced, and a recent survey undertaken by the University of Michigan (cited in Dalrymple et al, 1998) identified a total of 31 standards, guidance documents and codes of practice available in the world community. The publishers of these documents include national and state/provincial governments, national standards organizations and professional health and safety associations.
OHSAS 18000 series
Following the success of BS 8800 and the concern over the number of companies offering independent certification (ie not accredited by the national accreditation body) to the guidance in BS 8800, several organizations (both from the UK and internationally) worked together to produce a model specification. The principal aim of this was to produce some consistency as well as to put pressure on the ISO to develop an international standard. The result was the publication in 1999 of OHSAS 18001. OHSAS stands for Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series; this is not an official British Standard nor an ISO standard, however many of the major accreditation companies are offering certification to this standard. The management system model used in OHSAS 18001 (BSI, 1999) is the ISO 14001 model. As a specification, OHSAS 18001 lists a number of management system requirements using ‘shall’ statements such as ‘the organization shall establish and maintain documented health and safety objectives at each relevant function and level within the organization’.
The elements and sub-elements of OHSAS 18001 are shown in figure 4.
In 2000 the BSI produced OHSAS 18002 (BSI, 2000) to provide generic guidance on the application of 18001. This document describes the intent, typical inputs, processes and typical outputs against each requirement of 18001 in order to aid the understanding and implementation of OHSAS 18001.
Practical aspects of a health and safety management system
Whatever the management system adopted, whether it be OHSAS 18001, HSG65 or any other international model, they are all based on the systems model described earlier (ie input, process, output and feedback) and they all have a number of common requirements.
A summary of the overriding elements of managing health and safety has already been given in the section describing HSG65. The purpose of this section is to look at some of the particular activities within these elements. The order in which these elements are presented is based on the OHSAS 18001 model.
The health and safety policy
An organization’s top management should set out a health and safety policy stating their objectives and commitment to continual improvement. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974, there is an obligation on all organizations with five or more employees to prepare a written statement of general policy on occupational health and safety. Most organizations should, therefore, already have a ‘mission’ statement committing themselves to managing health and safety effectively, but there are certain specific requirements in 18001 covering, for example, commu-nication and review of the policy.
Planning for health and safety management
From the outset it is essential that there is commitment at the highest level within the organization to the OH&S management system.
BS 8800 (BSI, 1996) states that planning for OH&S involves:
- identifying requirements for the system (what needs to be done)
- setting clear performance criteria (what is to be done)
- identifying who is responsible (who gets it done)
- setting timescales (when it should be done by)
- identifying the desired outcome (what should be the result).
Risk assessment and management
The intent of this requirement is that the organization can appreciate all significant OH&S hazards facing it using the process of hazard identification and risk assessment. Risk assessment is the subject of the next paper in this series and will not be discussed further here, suffice to say that a great deal of the other requirements in 18001 relate back to this particular topic.
Legal requirements
The organization should identify all legal requirements applicable to it as well as any other industry or company-specific requirements to which it subscribes. These records must be kept up to date and communicated to employees and interested parties.
Health and safety objectives and programmes
Health and safety objectives are a major part of a management system and are defined as ‘the goals in terms of health and safety performance that an organization sets itself to achieve which should be quantified wherever practicable’.
OH&S objectives should be set annually. BS 8800 and Smith et al (1998) give examples of three types of OH&S objective:
- The introduction of additional features into the OH&S man-agement system (eg permit to work systems for specific tasks, strategic OH&S safety training for supervisors etc).
- The improvement of existing features or the constancy of their application across the organization (eg accident reporting, communication of standard procedures etc).
- The elimination or reduction in the frequency of particular undesired incidents (eg reduce accidents by 20%, remove all hazardous materials etc).
- individuals who are responsible for the deliverance of the objectives across the organization ??and/or within each operation
- various tasks that need to be undertaken in order to meet each objective.
For successful implementation and operation of an OH&S management system the following requirements should be addressed.
Roles and responsibilities
Organizations are required to identify and document OH&S responsibilities and how these responsibilities are structured. A member of top management must be responsible for the OH&S system. Regulation 8 of the Quarries Regulations, 1999, requires a quarry to put in place a ‘management structure’ for health and safety which overlaps with some of these requirements.
Training and competence
The organization should have effective procedures for ensuring the competence of personnel to carry out their designated func-tions. According to BS 8800 (BSI, 1996) the OH&S management system should include:
- systematic identification of the competencies required by each employee and the training needed to remedy any shortfall
- provision of training, identified as being necessary, in a timely and systematic manner
- assessment of individuals to ensure that they have acquired and maintain the knowledge and skills necessary for the level of competence required
- the maintenance of appropriate training/skills records.
Consultation and communication
The organization should encourage participation in, and support for, OH&S by all those affected by its operations, through a process of consultation and communication. BS 8800 (BSI, 1996) states that organizations need to ensure that they have effective arrangements for:
- identifying and receiving relevant OH&S information from outside the organization
- ensuring that pertinent OH&S information is communicated to all people in the organization who need it and that relevant information is communicated to people outside the organization who require it
- encouraging feedback and suggestions from employees on OH&S matters.
- These arrangements for employee involvement and consultation need to be documented.
Documentation
The organization should maintain sufficient up-to-date documentation to ensure that its OH&S management system can be adequately understood and effectively and efficiently operated.
There are certain areas of overlap between this requirement and Regulation 7 of the Quarries Regulations, 1999 which requires the production of a ‘health and safety document’. A ‘suitable and sufficient document’ should cover a large amount of similar material required by OHSAS 18001.
Operational control
The organization should establish and maintain arrangements to ensure that activities are carried out safely, and identify all activities where control measures are required. These arrangements should be based on the results of the risk assessment and any health and safety objectives that have been defined. Depending on the results of the risk assessment, these arrangements could be in the form of instructions, rules and procedures, which are a specific requirement of Regulation 10 of the Quarries Regulations, 1999 as well as the Quarry Health and Safety Document (Regulation 7).
Emergency preparedness and response
The organization should also plan and prepare for all foreseeable accident, incident and emergency situations. Again this should be based on the risk assessment and is a requirement of Regulation 15 of the Quarries Regulations, 1999.
Checking and corrective action
Measuring performance
Performance measurement is an essential part of an OH&S management system. According to BS 8800 and OHSAS 18002 (BSI 2000), the key purposes of measuring performance are to:
- Determine whether OH&S plans have been implemented and objectives achieved.
- Check that risk-control measures are in place and effective.
- Learn from system failures such as areas of non-compliance, accidents and incidents.
- Promote the implementation of plans and risk controls by providing feedback to all parties.
- Provide information that can be used to review and, if necessary, improve aspects of an OH&S management system.
An organization’s performance-measurement system should incorporate both active and reactive monitoring. Active measuring systems should be used to check compliance with the organization’s OH&S activities. Examples of active monitoring data (BSI, 1996) are:
- the extent to which plans and objectives have been set and achieved
- whether a director for OH&S has been appointed
- whether a safety policy has been published
- number trained in OH&S
- number of risk assessments completed
- extent of compliance with risk controls
- extent of compliance with statutory requirements
- frequency of OH&S audits
- frequency and effectiveness of OH&S committee meetings
- OH&S specialist reports
- health surveillance reports
- workplace exposure levels
- personal protective equipment use.
Reactive monitoring should be used to investigate, analyse and record OH&S management system failures, including accidents and incidents. Examples of reactive monitoring data include:
- unsafe acts
- unsafe conditions
- near misses
- lost-time accidents
- major accidents and fatalities
- sickness absences
- criticisms made by regulatory agency staff
- complaints made by members of the public.
- Investigating accidents and incidents
Organizations should have procedures for both reporting and investigating accidents and incidents. The prime purpose of these procedures should be to prevent further occurrence of the situation by identifying and dealing with the root causes. Any proposed corrective action should be subject to a risk assessment prior to implementation and any changes to activities must be documented. Accident investigation is the subject of a future paper in this series.
Records and record management
Records must be kept to demonstrate conformance with 18001. These should include training records, health-surveillance reports, audits and inspections and any other activity related to the system.
Audit
Organizations must have periodic audits to check whether the OH&S management system conforms to planned arrangements and is properly implemented and maintained.
Management review
At predetermined intervals top management are required to review the suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the system. These reviews must be documented.
Some of the requirements detailed above make reference to specific regulations within the Quarries Regulations, 1999, highlighting a degree of overlap. By complying with the Quarries Regulations, an operation should have in place some of the arrangements and procedures that are required by an OHSAS 18001-type system. Many quarrying operations in the UK have achieved, or are in the process of obtaining, accreditation to ISO 14001. Both 14001 and 18001 have similar compatible structures and system requirements, and many operators may be considering implementing an 18001 system and whether these systems should be integrated. Indeed, the annex at the end of OHSAS 18001 consists of a table displaying the correspondence with ISO 14001, showing how similar the structures are (the table also shows correspondence with ISO 9001 (1994), since superseded by ISO 9001: 2000).
There are advantages and disadvantages to integration, and while it may be the preferred option for many organizations, it may not suit all. The Institution of Safety and Health (IOSH, 1998) presents arguments both for and against integrated management systems, highlighting the fact that such systems have similar goals involving similar management processes, but identifying some conceptual differences.
For any management system to succeed it is imperative that it has the visible commitment of senior management. All too often such systems fail because they are considered by some to be too complex and formal and are treated as an imposition that creates additional paperwork.
In order to achieve any benefits the system has to have ownership and involvement, which is one of the main success factors in improving OH&S.
The goal of an OH&S management system is to systematically reduce the risk of accidents, incidents and ill health in the workplace through a process of managing risks. As well as risk assessment, health and safety activity is planned, there are objectives to work to and responsibilities are defined for everyone. The subject is vast and this paper merely seeks to give an appreciation of what management systems are and what they consist of with specific reference to OHSAS 18001. The next paper in this series will look at risk assessment –– undoubtedly the key element and ‘backbone’ of safety management.
References
HSE (1997), ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’, HSG65, HSE Books.
HSE (1999), ‘Managing Health and Safety: Five Steps to Success’, INDG275, HSE Books.
DALRYMPLE et al (1998), ‘Occupational health and safety management systems: Review and analysis of international, national and regional systems and proposals for a new international document’, report prepared by the International Occupational Hygiene Association for the International Labour Office.
BSI (1996): BS 8800: Guide to Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems.
BSI (2000): OHSAS 18002: Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems: Guidelines for the implementation of OHSAS 18001.
BSI (1999): OHSAS 18001: Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems — Specification.
IOSH (1998), ‘Institution Policy Statement: Integration of management systems for OSH, environmental performance and quality’, The Institution of Safety and Health, Leicester, UK.
SMITH, D., HUNT, G., and C. GREEN: ‘Managing safety the BS 8800 way’, BSI Publications, London, 1998.
The author, Dr Patrick J. Foster, is Anglo American plc lecturer in mining engineering at Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter
