In 2010, industry, unions and regulators jointly developed the eight Process Safety Leadership Principles that emerged from the 2005 Buncefield incident (explosions occurring at a UK oil storage depot, causing injuries to 40 people).  These have been widely adopted across onshore and offshore major hazard industries. Subsequently, the COMAH Competent Authority has developed an operational delivery guide based on these principles, used to conduct several inspections at COMAH regulated sites.

This report from the COMAH Strategic Forum sets out the key findings so far and has been developed within a working group of senior leaders from industry, regulators and the trade unions.  Whilst there are some good examples of effective leadership, there is still much work to be done; this is reflected in the decision by the COMAH CA to issue three improvement notices specifically relating to leadership.  The report sets out the rationale for focusing on process safety leadership with the emphasis placed on senior leaders across the organisation.  It then summarises the findings so far, and most importantly, it explains in detail what the inspections have revealed and key lessons that leaders in major hazard organisations can directly learn from and apply.  These lessons align to each of the eight principles of process safety leadership and highlight steps senior leaders can take:

• The essential need for leaders to communicate effectively about process safety across the entire organisation
• The need for senior leaders, regardless of their role or responsibilities, to demonstrate an appropriate level of process safety competency 
• The importance of having an effective set of process safety performance indicators that senior leaders understand and can challenge to continuously improve process safety performance

Process Safety Leadership: Learning lessons from interventions. Access the full report here

Cogent Skills is a member of the COMAH Strategic Forum. A high level joint chemical industry and regulator forum working to improve major accident hazard management and raise standards across the industry.  

To find out how Cogent Skills can help you with your Process Safety Leadership journey, get in touch today on 01325 7409000 or email [email protected]