Health & Safety
Health and safety (H&S) remains a priority for the Carr’s Group businesses. We operate a learning culture to encourage employees and contractors to share ideas and concerns. In FY23 as part of our cultural safety transformation, our H&S audit process was reviewed and a multi-tier approach adopted which would underpin our compliance to care approach to H&S.
H&S auditing and continuous improvement
Our approach to H&S is rooted in a consistent focus on human performance. The aim is to improve how the Group anticipates work will be undertaken safely and how the work is actually carried out.
During FY23 we have been focussed on conducting Tier-1 compliance based assessments across the Group. Through the focus on compliance and continuous improvement we have seen an increase in worker engagement, on average from less than 5% of the workforce to more than 30% with an aim of reaching 80% during Tier 2 phase. Ten planned Tier-1 audits were completed in FY23 across the UK, Germany, and USA operating businesses. In addition, three non operated joint ventures elected to learn from the Group’s approach and embed elements into their improvement plans. We also work with many contractors and suppliers, so they understand Carr’s safety requirements.
H&S training and competence
Carr’s is dedicated to preventing incidents by equipping individuals with the necessary skills and maintaining robust safety measures. We expect colleagues to consider two aspects when performing their tasks: the hazards that could potentially cause harm, and the effectiveness of the barriers in place to avoid harm should something go wrong. Mandatory H&S e-learning training continues for all new joiners and we have ongoing safety awareness programmes across our businesses.
Each site is developing site-specific training to enable focus on statutory and specialist training for their specific area of operation. One of our operational sites undertakes an annual safety stand-down, where production is halted to focus on safety training, education and culture. This gives employees and their management teams time to assess and reflect on incident prevention and working together to improve performance.
H&S performance
We encourage colleagues to improve, enhance individual capabilities, learn from mistakes, errors, and successes,
and speak up without being punished. This was underpinned during FY23 with a focus on learning events when investigating incidents. This has created greater interest and encouraged better reporting of potential and minor events, with the number of potential incidents reported in FY23 being more than double the FY22 period. This has also meant a greater opportunity to learn and prevent these events being repeated and leading to more serious incidents. Whilst there was a significant increase in reporting activity and desire to learn as trust is built, the Group delivered a Reportable Incident Rate/million hours worked of 1.23 (see table above). Two RIDDOR injuries were recorded during FY23 for the continuing Group, but
fortunately severity was low. The trends are shown in the table.
Steven Huntsman
Group HSE Director