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Consistently leading safe outcomes
We work to establish consistent application of policies, standards and procedures across the organisation and with our business partners based on effective risk management.
Safety, Health and Wellbeing
As we are directly managing the federally funded Broome Cape Leveque Road upgrade project, we needed accreditation from the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner which...
Some significant challenges related to safety will need to be overcome during the next 12 months. These being:
This year has seen the establishment of the corporate Safety Business Partner role to support directorate managers with access to a dedicated safety specialist. This role provides guidance and technical support for the implementation of the safety management system.
The Safety, Health and Wellbeing (SHW) policy statement was reviewed, updated and endorsed as part of the Integrated Management System (IMS) requirements. All three major policy statements – safety, quality and environment – are current for a further two years.
The annual IMS Management Review meeting was held in February and was well attended by personnel representing safety, quality and environment. Each year there is improved communication, integration and understanding between the three management systems. The results of the external IMS confirm the positive approach to managing IMS as part of everyday business.
Throughout the year we delivered on our Three- Year SHW Strategy Action Plan. Some of the key deliverables included:
During the year we made a decision that a number of projects in the Kimberley Region would be managed by Direct Managed Works. This means using Main Roads safety system on the project.
As some of these projects rely on federal funding if a project contributes more than $4 million, it is a requirement that we have Federal Safety Accreditation (FSA). Following an audit and review by the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner auditors, Main Roads achieved FSA in June 2018. Refer to the case study for more information.
We achieved recertification to Australian Standard 4801:2001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System, following an annual Integrated Management System surveillance audit (external audit) completed in March 2018. There were no major non-conformances identified during the audit and eight minor improvements are to be closed out during the year. The intention is to work towards ISO 45001 Standard, as outlined in our three-year action plan.
The annual ‘Main Roads Highway to Health Challenge’ continued to be supported. This initiative required employees and contractors to form teams of three and earn points by competing, which involved number of steps taken plus health and exercise challenges. There was 29 teams and 86 participants in the challenge, with the combined teams doing close to 42 million steps. To be precise: 41,665,995 steps or the equivalent of 31,749 kilometres over two months.
Our proactive approach to safety, health and wellbeing continues, including promoting our annual state-wide health and wellbeing program which is available all year. This includes flu vaccinations, skin screenings, health topic presentations, workstation ergonomic reviews, along with exercise campaigns that saw some staff participate in Corporate Sports, and the City to Surf fun run and HBF Run for a Reason.
A predominant amount of our workforce is directly engaged in road construction activities. Our contract workforce work environment interfaces with the road environment, moving traffic and heavy machinery. The construction industry itself is characterised by activities that are considered high risk from a safety perspective. According to Safe Work Australia the construction industry is consistently among the top few industries with the highest number of serious incidents. It has the fifth highest incidence rate of all industries.
We aim to influence safe practice throughout our business including on our projects and for road maintenance where we have a principalcontractor relationship. We require our contractors to provide safety related information including the reporting of serious incidents and reporting to our external bodies such as WorkSafe or EnergySafe if required.
Each project provides a Monthly Safety Indicator report that includes information that is collated to form our corporate dashboard:
‘EQSafe’, the safety component of the online Integrated Management System has been deployed for 12 months with all Directorates adding their lead and lag indicator information. We can now review trends for incidents, injuries and positive lead indicators such as safe observation conversations and safety moments.
Over the next 12 months it is expected that the system will be fully embedded into our business. Improvements will include the additional function of allowing Depot audits and inspections to be included.
Injury prevention and effective injury management continue to be a key focus of our SHW Strategy. Following the principle of early return-to-work we achieved a 30 per cent reduction of workers compensation claims and improved claim-closure rates.
The below table illustrates the steady reduction in claims over recent years: