The Competent Authority will continue to sample duty holders control measures and systems at major hazard sites in a proportionate way to provide assurance that site operators are managing major hazard risks appropriately.
Our own experience and feedback from duty holders indicates that Inspection is the most effective intervention to deliver our key aims, so a greater focus on inspection is at the heart of the changes.
Duty holders will see increased onsite inspection. We will achieve this by deploying more of our existing resource to inspection work as a result of the revised safety report assessment process. This approach, together with the greater use of multidisciplinary inspection teams - where possible, will provide greater scope to verify the arrangements for safety management described in the safety report.
The inspection programme will also be used to deliver the CA’s priorities, placing a greater emphasis on cross-cutting programmes of inspection to assess key topics, and report on standards of compliance.
Another important change will be joined-up approaches to inspection across the CA, and where possible, in our dealings with site operators. Effective planning and resourcing will be a key element, and to achieve this goal, a feasibility study and pilot of formally scheduled multidisciplinary team inspections is planned for 2010/11.
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Conclusions Letter | ||
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Within 3 months of the Conclusions Letter specialist "read through" and generation of the "Significant issues register" Matters of serious concern |
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Site inspection Specialist to bottom out concerns |
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Within 6 - 9 months of the Conclusions Letter 1st post-assessment multidisciplinary team inspection Primary focus: - To investigate "weaknesses" in the Safety Report - Test Safety Report "demonstrations" with operator - To identify inspection topics for subsequent years |
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- Pre visit "Significant issues register" The primary driver re: obvious "holes" |
| Limited follow up visits - To close out issues review/verify action taken by dutyholder | |||
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12 months after the 1st post-assessment inspection 2nd post-assessment team inspection (Yr 2/3 etc) - Residual issues from the Safety Report - CA strategic priorities - Review and agree intervention for following year |
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- Close out existing issues that were addressed but not completed in team inspection - Check operator has completed agreed options |
| Limited follow up visits - To close out issues review/verify action taken by dutyholder | |||
The outcome here will be increased specialist resource to inspection – verifying what is happening on the ground.
In addition to greater onsite verification, any retrospective or ongoing improvements in the safety report demonstrations will be influenced and directed by the findings from increased inspection activities.
The CASMG will also set strategic priorities for intervention – enabling national priorities to play a bigger part in the inspection process.
A key goal of the changes is to ultimately adopt a single team inspection approach for those sites where it is appropriate and where it does not compromise effective intervention.
