Background
In 2007 the board of RSSB agreed that it would restructure the board meeting agenda to consider in more detail the major industry risks and development opportunities, where RSSB has a role to play.
Two generic types of risk were identified: firstly System Safety Risk which would be derived from the latest version of the Safety Risk Model (version 5) and secondly more general cost, performance and reputation risk referred to as Other Strategic Risk where RSSB services play a more supportive role, but can have significant impact.
Starting at the May 2007 board, each meeting now considers one system safety risk and one other strategic risk and working with all relevant stakeholders RSSB produces comprehensive discussion papers for each that cover the following points:
- Identification of the current state of the risk or opportunity, including trends in terms of all industry objectives (cost, performance, safety and capacity)
- An overview of activities the industry is undertaking to address the risk and what is expected to change in the future
- A summary of industry arrangements to manage the risk (eg. the existence of cross-industry groups, processes, relevant standards etc)
- A review of issues for strategic resolution and definition of further work needed
- Any proposed changes to arrangements
With considerable stakeholder input, for which RSSB thanks those involved, the discussion papers are a valuable source of industry intelligence and will be published after each board meeting, together with a short summary of conclusions and next steps as agreed by the board.
A timetable of past and forthcoming papers is also available below.