Modelling Safety Culture for Individual Organisations

In recent years, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has suffered a number of accidents during its operations which have resulted in fatalities. The most recent was the loss of a Nimrod XV230 aircraft and its crew in 2006 during operations in theatre in Afghanistan. The accident prompted an investigation culminating in a report by Charles Haddon-Cave QC. The report highlighted a number of failings in safety management, one of which is key: 'a process-driven and document-heavy safety culture'. The report recommended a number of improvements to cultivate a strong safety culture, the importance of which the MOD has recognised, and the organisation has begun implementing major changes to its organisational structure. This presentation analyses safety culture, reviewing and breaking down the definitions of safety culture to create a model in which it can be measured. Safety culture relates to an organisation's perception of safety, through the attitudes, beliefs, and understanding of the people within an organisation. Therefore the speaker focuses on the human element of a safety management system, developing and using the model to identify competence as a critical component in safety culture. To provide a means of measuring competence, a questionnaire study has been developed using practice and guidance from the HSE and IET. The questionnaire is designed to identify specific human factors which have influenced the results.