Our Safety Culture

At a strategic level, we see promoting and protecting health and safety as a key business objective – which is why our Managing Director chairs the Group Health, Safety and Environmental Steering Committee that drives policy in this all-important area.

We have steadily raised our performance over the years by developing and implementing:

• robust systems (accredited to OHSAS 18001 – 2007) for managing safety consistently across the Group,
• clear procedures for reporting and investigating incidents, and
• an effective training programme.

All of these are kept under review and regularly updated and improved.

But strong policy and procedures are not enough. So we have put great effort into promoting leadership on safety at all levels and a culture of safety-aware behaviour.

Our Ten Safety Values embody the kind of safety culture we are fostering – one where we challenge, help and look out for each other. And it’s working.

We have cut the number of injury incidents leading to time off work to less than a fifth of their level 10 years ago.

We capture details of ‘near misses’ so we can learn how to prevent future incidents. Spurred by a £1 donation to road safety charity Brake for each near miss our employees report, the total number rose almost five-fold. (So far we’ve donated over  £3,020.)

Meanwhile, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has recognised our achievements with three consecutive Gold Medal Awards and a special RoSPA Recognition Award for our behavioural safety programme.