Major Incident
Roles and Responsibilities

Major incident investigation board

Roles

The MIIB is formed when a major incident is declared and its composition is determined in response to the nature of the incident concerned.

The MIIB is responsible for advising the investigation manager and the Executive on the conduct of the investigation into the incident.

The MIIB is also responsible for monitoring the policy and procedure review, if one is undertaken and ensuring issues that have implications for HSE's policies and procedures are examined.

The independent member(s) provide a source of independent advice to the major incident investigation and policy and procedure review. They also provide independent assurance to the Commission (in the case of a HSW reg.14(2) investigation) and the Executive on the adequacy of the investigation and the conclusions drawn.

Responsibilities

The MIIB is responsible for:

• monitoring the course of the investigation by receiving regular reports from the investigation team leader on progress and outcomes and providing advice and support as necessary
• ensuring that the investigation identifies the immediate and underlying causes of the incident and examines the extent to which the duty holder(s) have complied with the law
• ensuring that the process of evidence collection and the conclusions drawn from the evidence are robust and will withstand scrutiny
• considering, in consultation with Legal Advisor's Office, whether to publish interim technical reports if broader health and safety lessons emerge
• agreeing the action to be taken by HSE as a result of the investigation, including enforcement action if appropriate in line with the HSC Enforcement Policy Statement.
  Note: the Board Member(s) independent of HSE are not involved in enforcement action considerations
• endorsing the report on the outcome of the investigation.

The MIIB also:

• ensures that any issues emerging from the investigation which have implications with respect to HSE's policy and procedure are examined by the policy and procedure review team and that appropriate recommendations to improve effectiveness are made
• monitors progress of the policy and procedure review by way of regular reports from the review team leader, directing the course of the review as necessary and endorsing the report on the policy and procedure review

In addition to the above responsibilities, the Board Members independent of HSE are responsible for providing:

• an independent view on the interpretation of the evidence collected and the conclusions drawn and assurance to the Executive that the major incident investigation and policy and procedure review processes met their terms of reference

and in particular that:

• the performance of duty holders has been thoroughly examined, the immediate and underlying causes of the incident have been identified and remedial actions have been taken or are proposed
• the investigation and policy and procedure review have been properly conducted and the role of HSE, and where relevant the HSC, before the incident has been properly considered

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