Significant improvements have been made in the UK offshore industry since Piper Alpha.

As we all know, the public inquiry, chaired by Lord Cullen went on to make 106 recommendations -all of which were accepted by industry.  Lord Cullen's key recommendation: the introduction of regulations that required the operator/owner of every fixed and mobile installation operating in UK waters to submit to the HSE, for their acceptance, a safety case.

The safety case must give full details of the arrangements for managing health and safety and controlling major accident hazards on the installation.  At the same time, Lord Cullen went on to reinforce and restate the value of workforce representation and engagement supporting the SI 971 regulations, which came into force in 1989 and provided a voice for the offshore workforce in the health and safety arrangements of their installation.

The initial response from industry saw immediate improvements to the control of work systems, emergency shutdown and subsea pipeline isolation arrangements, evacuation and escape systems, as well as workforce engagement and occupational safety.

However, by 1997, concerned that its earlier successes were not being sustained, the industry launched Step Change in Safety.  The organisation was designed to continue the post-Piper Alpha improvements and drive greater improvement and workforce involvement.  Step Change in Safety’s original remit was to refocus the safety effort and set an ambitious target of delivering a 50 per cent improvement in the whole industry's safety performance over the following three years. 

Since then Step Change in Safety has become a truly tripartite organisation, which means employers, regulators and workforce and their representatives working together to effect change and improve our safety performance.  Ultimately the oil and gas companies, the workforce and their trades union representatives, as well as the regulator, share the same collective ambition - we all want to make sure that everyone goes home to their family and friends safe and well.

Over the years, Step Change in Safety has successfully delivered over 40 collaborative initiatives from the industry wide deployment of Green Hats, supporting the introduction of Vantage POB and Personal Responsibility for Safety, and guided industry through the widespread workforce engagement initiative “Boots on for Safety”. 

We have also led the introduction of MIST, delivered through the OPITO standards, and improved the competence of those working on hydrocarbon pipework with the ECITB on the Mechanical Joint Integrity programme many of which are now utilised globally to great effect.

There can be no doubt that the past three years of sustained change has arguably saved the UKCS.

There has been some tremendous success and we’ve weathered the storm, but those very successes have opened new challenges and some old wounds. There are some who would say that the restructuring of our industry has re-established the perceived conflict between improving safety and reducing costs and that something will have to give.  In an industry where cost and safety are mentioned closely together, we need to truly recognise that safety and reliability do go hand in hand.  A reliable operation is generally a safer operation that can be more proactive and create time to implement and use leading indicators to generate greater resilience in the organisation via more robust defences.  The challenge is to ensure we embrace the hard aspects of technology while we ensure that we improve the soft skills of our workforce.

The engagement level of the site-based workforce is an area that some believe has suffered the most and this is reflected in many of the cross-industry fora. The industry has a freely available engagement toolkit via Step Change that includes a benchmarking survey.  However, we felt that there was a better, more collaborative and visibly committed way to take the next steps in understanding our level of engagement.

Furthermore, as we reflect on the 30th anniversary of Piper Alpha, and with Major Accident Hazard, Control of Work and workforce engagement being such strong themes in Lord Cullen’s report, we felt it was the appropriate time to re-visit the “Boots-on” concept with an industry wide engagement campaign.  The “Boots on for Safety 2018” campaign was designed to build on the regular management visits we currently undertake. It is not an audit, but rather an opportunity to engage in a more consistent and collaborative approach with our site-based workforce and gain a greater understanding of the issues that they deal with every day and review how management can support.  Collectively the campaign is an industry opportunity to visit the assets to look at common areas to provide feedback in a consistent manner.

An area of growing concern in many work places as well as the offshore industry is mental health every year, one in four of us in the UK is affected by a mental health problem.  This is perhaps not as well understood or managed within our industry when compared to other sectors and we recognise that it is an area where we have the potential to improve by learning from others. Our industry needs to identify how we can raise awareness and include this knowledge and assessment in our core thinking and leadership.  Mental health, like physical health is something we all have, and it should be as easy to talk about.

Those of us working in the oil and gas industry must challenge ourselves by asking “Are we mature enough to have the discussion over cost, efficiency and safety”.   By working together, we can make things simpler and more engaging for our workforce.  We can save money, be more efficient and be more sustainable while, at the same time, improving our safety performance. 

As an organisation which represents every part of the industry - operators, contractors, unions and regulators - whatever Step Change in Safety’s position, it will be one that is agreed on by every company that Step Change in Safety represents.  As is expected in such a vast and varied industry, not all parties are on the same page.  However, regardless of our differing opinions, none of us can escape the fact that we all work in an industry where the bedrock is interdependent relationships.  Our Workforce Engagement Survey has shown that across the UKCS, when teams work together more consistently and in the correct environment, there is an increase in safety engagement and they can deliver improved site efficiency.  This must continue. 

Operators need the expertise of contractors, who are supported by the innovation and ingenuity of a supply chain.  Trade unions and associations need members to represent, and workers need jobs where the risks they are exposed to are properly controlled by regulators.  We are all economically and morally reliant on, and responsible to, each other.  Each sector has a different offering when we navigate through challenges like this; challenges which will affect the whole industry in one way or another.

We cannot face the changes without involvement, consultation or engagement on unprecedented levels.  Our actions and decisions will have consequences for workers, companies, families and communities for years to come.

Sir Brian Appleton, who acted as a technical adviser during the Cullen Inquiry made this statement during the investigations into the cause of the Piper Alpha disaster:

“Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die’.”

The importance of this cannot be understated and we all still need to play our part.