New Power Generation Safety Award announced

At its meeting in March, the Power Generation Safety Committee (PGSC) decided to introduce new annual Safety Awards. These new awards will replace the existing awards (lowest lost time accident rate, longest interval between lost time accidents, most improved station), and will be open to all work locations (stations, major project sites, head office, etc). The existing Tidy Station Award will remain in place.

Announcing these new awards in a briefing to safety committees, Executive Director Pat O'Doherty said that this was an opportunity for all locations to demonstrate improvements in the management of Health & Safety in the workplace. It is planned to have one overall winner of the prestigious "Power Generation Excellence in Health & Safety Award." There will be a number of merit awards which will recognise significant achievements in Health & Safety. The number of merit awards granted will be left to the discretion of the judging panel.

These new awards will go beyond the 'raw safety statistics' and will be the primary means for Power Generation to recognise the commitment of individual staff members and locations in managing Health & Safety in their work location.

The awards will be based on five weighted criteria. These criteria will gather together much of the safety-related information already in place. There will also be an opportunity for locations to submit any other safety-related information that would be appropriate in support of their applications.

The five weighted criteria for the awards are as follows:

1. Lost Time Accident Rate per million man-hours worked. This will be weighted at 40% of the overall score and will focus on the accident rate per location. It will also, however, go behind the raw data and will also address issues such as how effective work locations are in briefing staff on accident / incident and near miss reports
2. Du Pont Audits. This will be weighted at 20% of the overall score and will focus on the effectiveness of the Du Pont Auditing process in work locations. The judging panel will investigate if work locations have a Du Pont Audit schedule, and will compare the number of actual audits completed to the number of planned audits to be completed. The judging panel will also look at the number of audits completed that have no outstanding issues remaining, i.e. all actions arising from an audit have been completed.
3. Safety Improvement Plan. This will be weighted at 20% of the overall score and will look at the actual staff training carried out compared to the planned training to be carried out. It will look at the risk assessment process and will investigate if the work location has a plan in place to comply with the new Power Generation Standard for this area. It will look at the effectiveness of the local Safety Committee and will investigate what safety initiatives were put in place over the year
4. House-keeping. This will be weighted at 10% of the overall score and will incorporate the Tidy Station score, Waste Management procedures, signage and Traffic Management around the work location.
5. Self Safety Audit Score. This will be weighted at 10% of the overall score and will look at the following headings:
   • Management of safety
   • Emergency procedures
   • Fire protection
   • Tools and equipment
   • Statutory inspections
   • Occupational health and safety
   • Operational safety
   A subgroup of the PGSC will be established so as to act as a Judging Panel for this process. A shortlist will be drawn up from all of the entries received and will be based on the five weighted criteria above. The judging panel will then visit the short-listed work locations to select the overall winner and those that are to receive merit awards. The announcement of the overall winner will be announced at a ceremony early next year.