Audits: aiding improvement
July 1st 2008

A health and safety audit can help to highlight things that work well and that should be maintained, and identify areas that require increased attention.

John Allen, managing consultant at RoSPA, comments

Acompany's attitude to the health and safety of its workforce and others speaks volumes about its overall values and professionalism. In addition to the clear legal and moral prompts for action, effectively managing health and safety makes sound business sense. Good performance in this sphere is increasingly seen as a competitive advantage that is attractive to shareholders, potential business partners and customers.

The underlying principles of health and safety management essentially require employers to ensure the absence of risk to the safety and health of employees and others 'so far as is reasonably practicable'.

Meeting this requirement cannot be achieved by one-off interventions; firms need to establish a robust system for managing health and safety (policies, people and procedures), before trying to find solutions.

It is extremely important to periodically check that this system for managing health and safety is up to scratch. This can be done through an audit. At this point, it is worth stating that an audit differs from a safety inspection. Inspections primarily assess physical workplace conditions and activities and, through observation, compliance with legal and best practice requirements can be checked.

Audits are the next level of actively monitoring performance. They look at the adequacy of the health and safety management system itself, identifying the quality of the system, as well as how it is implemented.

Most companies that are committed to effectively managing health and safety carry out workplace inspections, whereas auditing is often neglected or carried out in a superficial manner. But there are strong justifications for carrying out audits.

Significant reassurance can come through an audit of the system that should be working to keep things healthy and safe.

The process can help to highlight things that work well and that should be maintained, and identify areas that might require increased attention.

The time spent on the process will also pay dividends in long-term savings, including through the allocation of valuable resources to the issues that are identified by an audit to be important, rather than the issues that are merely thought to be important. Organisations that devote this level of attention to their management of health and safety also invariably see reduced accident rates, with consequent cost savings.

For an audit to be effective, a number of requirements should be met: An audit should seek to compare a firm's management system against a suitable 'standard'. There are currently a number of best practice guidance documents on the subject that could be covered by an audit. Primarily, these are: HSG65 – the HSE's 'Successful Health and Safety Management'; the British Standard guidance document BS8800; and the standard BS EN OHSAS 18001.

Flexibility in auditing is crucial if organisational requirements and objectives are to be met and reflected. Some key topics need to be addressed by all organisations, such as the management of fire and emergency situations, but others are more sector-specific, for example process change and plant modifications.

Tailoring an audit to suit the specific 'risk profile' of a particular firm, therefore, is crucial.

A bespoke approach should continue into the reporting stage, such as through the production of quantitative results that allow benchmarking across different sites operated by the company in question and also against industry averages. Honest and pragmatic recommendations help a firm get to where it needs to be.

Audits should be carried out by trained and competent auditors. The practice requires certain knowledge and skills related to the 'standard' against which the audit is being conducted and the actual techniques involved in auditing.

Many companies prefer to use an experienced external consultant for auditing work, but there are options for those wanting to train their own competent auditor. In considering this, it is important to research how course delegates are trained, how their competence is assessed and whether they will be supported in auditing their own firm.

When considering a health and safety audit, the focus should be on the motivation for carrying it out. An audit should be seen in a positive light, not as a nit-picking exercise with a primary purpose to find fault. Look for ways to publicise and celebrate any achievements that an audit identifies.

Continuous improvement is the key to achieving real success in health and safety management and the ultimate aim of the auditing process is to enable this to happen.

Further information on health and safety audits can be found at www.rospa.com/audit

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