Offshore Industry: Air Pollution

(asked on 1st May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what standard training the Government has made available to elected safety representatives in the (a) detection and (b) reporting of hydrocarbon releases from oil and gas installations on the UK continental shelf.


Answered by
Sarah Newton Portrait
Sarah Newton
This question was answered on 10th May 2018

The Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (OPITO) is the organisation that provides the standard for initial Elected Safety Representative (ESR) training. It is the Duty Holders who are responsible for ensuring ESRs are suitably trained and that the cost is not borne by them.

The OPITO Offshore Safety Representative Training Standard was reviewed by OPITO, HSE, International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC), and the Step Change in Safety Workforce Engagement Support Team (WEST) during 2016/2017. A revised standard has been in use since 5 June 2017 and includes 34learning outcomes.

There are also OPITO development training modules for ESRs which were developed in conjunction with the Offshore Industry Advisory Committee’s “Workforce Involvement Group” during 2012. The modules are:

  1. Understanding and Identifying Major Accident Hazards.
  2. Understanding Risk Analysis to get Involved in Preparing and Revising the Safety Case.
  3. Investigate Incidents and Apply Root Case Analysis.
  4. Conduct Independent Inspections and Audits and Effectively Present Findings.

HSE has conducted 26 offshore inspections on Workforce Engagement in the last two and a half years, which includes compliance with the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations 1989 (“SI971”); the need for ESRs to be provided with the time, training and facilities to fulfil their functions under these Regulations; and involvement with the work force they represent. and how matters are addressed by the Safety Committee. This also covered the mandatory consultation in the 2015 Safety Case regulations.

HSE’s workforce engagement policies identified the need for ESRs to be provided with more suitable training so that they could more effectively engage with managing major accident hazards. This resulted in the development of the four OPITO training modules mentioned above. Since the increased uptake of the additional training, and the development of comparable training by individual duty holders, HSE inspectors are finding that ESRs now have a better understanding of major accident hazard management. This means that ESRs are better placed to discharge their safety functions.

HSE inspectors always meet with ESRs as the first part of their offshore inspection. The inspectors discuss and sense check their inspection agendas with ESRs. Very often ESRs will identify issues that the HSE inspectors had not planned to inspect. These inputs are invariably very useful to HSE and often make a major difference to the impact of the inspections. HSE also finds that duty holder leaders greatly value the safety insights provided to them by their ESRs.

Reticulating Splines