Safety Decision Making

'Taking safe decisions' - a new publication for the rail industry

In the GB railway industry safety is our overriding priority. Almost every policy, investment or operational decision taken has an impact on safety and therefore consideration of safety must be embedded effectively into decisions. On 4th June 2007 RSSB published the first part of the industry document Taking safe decisions which outlines the principles that we, as an industry, apply to do this.

Part 1 of Taking safe decisions has been agreed for publication as a document for referencing from Train Operator's safety management systems. The publication describes the industry consensus view of how decisions should be taken that properly protect the safety of rail industry staff, passengers and others, satisfy the law, respect the interests of our stakeholders, and are commercially sound.

A key principle that is clarified is that in the GB railway industry decisions are taken for both commercial and legal reasons. We distinguish between these reasons as they have implications for whether or not a decision is mandatory, and how the impact of that decision is subsequently managed and perceived.

Taking Safe Decisions consists of three parts:

• Part 1 - A statement of principles.
• Part 2 -The Decision taking framework: describing how the principles can be put into practice.
• Part 3: Worked examples: outlining how the framework is applied, using a number of illustrative examples.

The hierarchy of documents forming and supporting Taking Safe Decisions is outlined in the diagram below with a hyperlink to Part 1 of the document.

Part 1 of the document should be of interest to both senior managers and safety practitioners whereas Parts 2 and 3 provide guidance targeted at safety practitioners. The latter two parts of the publication are due for publication in early 2008 to align with publication of ORR guidance describing how to undertake Cost Benefit Analysis. The Route to Taking Safe Decisions forms a record of the work of the Safety Decisions Programme. The document is therefore a useful reference for anyone wishing to understand the logical, practical and legal arguments behind the consensus industry position set out in Taking Safe Decisions.

The development of ‘Taking safe decisions’

Taking Safe Decisions has been developed over a period of several years and is published by RSSB following an extensive programme of research, analysis and consultation.

In 2005 RSSB published - How safe is safe enough? (HSISE) to outline some of the longstanding challenges and uncertainties that the rail industry faced and to bring together a single overview of good practice in taking decisions which affect safety, as it was understood at that time. HSISE provided a framework for rail managers and employees to use, to ensure that decisions that affect safety were:

• Taken and recorded - safety decisions should not happen by default.
• Taken at the right level - responsibility should be devolved to those with the experience and authority
• Taken for the right reason - it is acceptable to do nothing, if nothing is the proper conclusion
• Taken using professional judgement - considering all appropriate factors

The content of HSISE is one of the inputs being used to develop the Decision taking framework and Worked examples. HSISE is therefore to be superseded by Taking Safe Decisions when the full set of documents is published in early 2008.

For any further information about the Safety Decisions Programme please contact George Bearfield, the Programme Manager.

Previous MORI survey into Public Attitudes towards Safety on the Railway

One of the key elements of RSSB's remit is to measure, report and inform on health and safety performance, safety intelligence, trends, data and risk. The following report presents the summary findings of a survey of the general public conducted by MORI during 2006, exploring the way in which the general public form perceptions of safety and risk on the railways. This survey tracks trends in the public debate on railway safety over three years, by comparing the 2006 survey with the opinions expressed in 2003 and 2005 surveys. Download the report "Public Attitudes to Safety on the Railways".