Birse Rail

Birse Rail, part of Birse Construction, provides specialist railway engineering services across the UK. By adopting a zero tolerance culture, significant reductions in accidents have improved safety, reduced business interruptions, and strengthened supply chain relations.

The challenge

2001 was notable for six reportable health and safety incidents, two of which involved non-Birse Rail employees. The Safety First initiative set out to significantly reduce the accident frequency rate (AFR) to 0.2,  based on a principle of zero tolerance.

What did the company do?

• Support from the top – the managing director involved as part of maintaining focus on the initiative
• Provision of training support to site business managers by the assurance manager
• Creation of a supply chain manager with the role to help identify and bridge gaps in HSE&Q with more than 60 suppliers
• Implementation of the direct labour force to ensure a competent workforce for site managers

Business benefits

• Reduced downtime due to significant reduction in AFR
• Increase in contract pre-qualification scores
• Increased client confidence contributing to repeat contracts
• Reduction in management time in incident investigations
• Improved relations with supply chain

Health and safety benefits

• 69% reduction in AFR from 0.64 (2001) to 0.2 (2002) per 200,000 hours worked
• Highly commended in Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Construction Sector Award
• Improved competency in health and safety at all levels
• Increased consistency and efficiency in dealing with corrective actions

‘The performance is a testament to the controls, procedures, competencies and most importantly culture that is inherent within the business.’

Neil Thompson, Managing Director

‘The success of the initiative speaks for itself. We’re providing a safer place to work for our staff, reducing business interruptions and further strengthening our relationships with clients and contractors.’

Steve Jones, Assurance Manager Birse Rail

Cost benefits

The induction and health and safety training costs for the direct labour force are around £15,000 a year. The cost of the assurance and supply chain managers’ time spent on health and safety matters is around £120,000 a year (direct and indirect costs).

The business benefits that Birse Rail has enjoyed as a result of Safety First haven’t been quantified. However, the company is confident that the significant reduction in accidents, resulting in less management time spent managing staff absence through injury and investigating incidents and fewer claims more than recovers the annual costs of the initiative. The improvements in client and contractor relations are an additional bonus.

Leadership

‘We will uphold a zero tolerance attitude towards unsafe practices. We will ensure a culture of non acceptance towards the idea it is inevitable that accidents occur.’

Neil Thompson, Managing Director

Worker involvement

Significant commitment has been shown by employees across the organisation, as well as from within the supply chain, to achieve a reduction in the AFR.