Culture of blame on Transocean rigs

A culture of fear and blame is rife across the operations of offshore drilling contractor Transocean, according to a leaked HSE inspection report.

The company, which BP blamed in part for the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April, was the subject of an HSE investigation across four of its North-Sea rigs last year. The resulting report, which was leaked to the RMT union, highlighted many strengths within Transocean – such as an emphasis on training, support and implementation of key safety initiatives, and good communication of safety-related incidents to personnel – but found that health and safety was in danger of being compromised by an organisational culture of “discipline, blame and zero tolerance”.

The report, which the company has had for several months, states that “unacceptable behaviours by offshore management were raised on more than one rig visited”, including “bullying, aggression, harassment, humiliation and intimidation”. Such behaviours, the report reveals, “are causing some individuals to exhibit symptoms of work-related stress, with potential safety implications”.

Evidence cited by the HSE of the negative impact the company’s culture has had on its workforce include concern among personnel that they will be punished should they be involved in an accident. Staff are also “trying to avoid risky jobs, in case they make a mistake, or have an incident and will then be fired”, and that the expected management response to an incident is “affecting reporting rates, such that some events go unreported”.

While the report underlines the inspection team’s conviction that “senior management are committed to the health and safety of their workforce”, the company’s health and safety policy statement “places emphasis on individual involvement, personal responsibility and accountability”, instead of recognising that incidents tend to result from failings in management control.

Following the leak, an HSE spokesperson said it did not want to comment in detail as it is not a public report, but confirmed: “This particular non-technical report was sent to Transocean in February. No enforcement notices were issued as a result.”

Source: SHP 20 Sept 2010

Transfer between MS Access and MS Excel

SSS have carried out work on behalf of one of clients to export data from Access to Excel and also manipulate the appearance within the spreadsheet from the Access code. Functions achieved were:

• Export of 7 queries to separate worksheets within the same spreadsheet
• Export of data to another spreadsheet, setting the cell colours dependant upon the urgency level of the data.

We can see applications of this arrangement within INTACT.

New 9001 certifications

Congratulations to VCG Colourlink who have become certified to ISO 9001:2008 with the help of Strategic Safety Systems Ltd.

Legal updates

There are some changes to legislation:

• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment) Regulations 2010
  Amends the previous regs., replacing ‘dangerous substance or preparation’ with ‘dangerous substance or mixture’ and (as from 1 December 2010 and 1 June 2015) substitutes new definitions of ‘dangerous substance or mixture’. Also other changes that do not affect those people on the SSS Register of Legislation.

• Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
  Have been updated. The main impact is the removal of the need to register for exemption. See an earlier blog on this.

SSS will be sending out issue "P" of the Register of Legislation to all those companies to whom we have supplied 14001 or 18001 systems.

Waste storage at place of production

The storage and treatment (eg shredding or compaction) of waste at the place of production has been clarified.
You no longer have to be registered as being exempt if:

• You only store waste at the place where it is produced,
• You don't bring waste from lots of different sites back to one site,
• You store waste for less than 12 months

You must store the waste in a secure place (ie ensure that waste cannot be windblown, etc.)

You may also carry out "ancillary treatment" including:

• Compaction of paper and cardboard stored within a container,
• Shredding confidential papers for crushing,
• Compacting large items, or
• Separating recyclables.

More information on this is available from the Environment Agency via this link.

Need to register a compactor

The Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010 have closed the loophole where you didn't need to register for exemption if you were compacting waste paper or plastic on the site where you produced it.
You now have to register for exemption if you compact (over a 7-day period):

• Paper or cardboard up to 500 tonnes (outdoors) or 3000 tonnes (indoors)
• Plastic up to 100 tonnes (outdoors) or 3000 tonnes (indoors)

Contact the Environment Agency and state that you would like to register a T4 activity for exemption.

Yes, I know it's ridiculous and would drive behaviour in the wrong direction (ie not compacting, thereby requiring more waste company vehicle journies, thereby using up natural resources and adding to CO2 emissions), but we're stuck with it.

Forklift accident despite risk assessment

Tyre manufacturer Pirelli failed to act on the findings of a risk assessment that identified a failure to separate vehicles and pedestrians at its factory in Carlisle.

North Cumbria Magistrates’ Court heard that 62-year-old contractor, Alan Miller, was feeding an electric cable into a sub-floor gallery when the incident took place on 29 October 2008. Once he had finished, he walked through an area within the curing department at the Dalston Road site, and was struck from behind by a pallet being carried on a forklift truck. He suffered a broken leg and has been unable to return to work owing to his injuries.

HSE inspectors learned that several similar incidents had previously taken place in the same area of the factory. In March 2008, a contractor stepped off a walkway in front of a forklift, which forced the vehicle to make an emergency stop. The truck’s sudden halt caused one of the pallets it was carrying to fall and land on the contractor, who suffered a broken leg.

The investigation found that forklift drivers’ vision was frequently obscured because they had to lower their loads to avoid overhead obstructions. Pirelli had identified the problem during a previous risk assessment but had failed to take steps to make the area a pedestrian-free zone.

HSE inspector Michael Griffiths issued an Improvement Notice on 4 December 2008, which required the firm to ensure that vehicles and pedestrians were separated.

Inspector Griffiths said: “The storage area should have been clearly marked as ‘pedestrian free’, and the injured worker should have been told of the risks prior to the incident in October 2008.

“Site operators should provide contractors with appropriate health and safety information, so that they can do their work safely. In practice, this means sharing information about the workplace, the routes to be used, and types of vehicles and equipment on site. Specific hazards and other people on site, including other contractors or visiting drivers, should also be considered.”

Pirelli appeared in court on 16 July and pleaded guilty to breaching s3(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was fined £9000 and ordered to pay £4282 towards the costs of the prosecution.

In mitigation, the company told the court that it had subsequently put up signs to warn employees that the area was a pedestrian-free zone. It also identified safe crossing points and put barriers in particularly dangerous areas. It has also installed CCTV to ensure that drivers follow the marked-out routes.

Source: SHP