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Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 021

S Martin – 10 March 2006

Near Miss Reporting 2

I am delighted to advise that bulletin No 20 (Near Miss Reporting) has generated more
feedback than any other so I thought it worth generating another.

The only way that we can really change the culture of other contractors and our less well
educated customers alike is to raise the issues and take positive action to change things at
site level.

The main question raised by our teams is – “Why should I risk conflict and grass other
contractors up?”

Being very honest, none of us enjoy confronting others, especially if what they are doing is
“none of our business”, but how would you feel if it was your spouse or your son was
working for example on a ladder and other contractors didn’t say anything because it
was “none of their business” and he slipped, fell from height and died? How would his
kids feel?

Why should anyone feel awkward about stopping someone from being hurt? – you are doing
his/her family a great favour, even though he might not realise it at the time.

From a business viewpoint, at the end of February Paul Harrison signed in at a filling station
that we were working on and saw a contractor working from a ladder at the top of an MID
without any PPE. Paul did exactly the right thing by addressing it with the contractor and work
was stopped (only for him to return later and carry out the work when we had left site); the
issue was reported to the office. The contractor doing the work on the MID did not sign the
visitors book and no paperwork was left on site.

If a passer-by, or another contractor had noticed this and reported it to our client, an
investigation would have been carried out and the only contractor in the book that day would
have been working for Xmo Strata – the inevitable conclusion would have been that we were
working on the site so it must have been one of our men, resulting in a severe reprimand or
the suspension or termination of our contract.

I would urge each of you to approach anyone working safely in a polite manner and advise
your supervisor of the action taken.