Information Sources Used in Identifying Hazards and Assessing Risk

External information sources include:

• National governmental enforcement agencies such as the UK’s HSE (www.hse.gov.uk), the USA’s OSHA (www.osha.gov), and Western Australia’s WorkSafe (www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe). These all produce legal and best practice guidance and statistics. Even if you are not under their regulatory control, their guidance can still be a valuable source of advice, especially where little or none exists in your region.
• International bodies such as the European Safety Agency (osha.europa.eu); the International Labour Organisation and their “safework” site (www.ilo.org); and the World Health Organisation (www.who.int).
• Professional bodies such as IOSH (www.iosh.co.uk) and IIRSM (www.iirsm.org).
• Trade unions, a number of whom produce information on safety and health matters. The trade union interest here may be in making members aware of possible compensation areas.
• Insurance companies, who set the levels of premiums and need data to calculate the probable risks of any venture. The average risks involved in most activities can be found in insurance tables. Since the risk manager is involved in managing risks, these tables will be extremely useful, although getting hold of them may not be so easy.
• Trade associations.

Internal information is the most relevant data for an organization, but other sources will be needed for comparisons unless the organization is large enough to give statistical significance.
There should be a source of accident and ill-health data, as well as near-miss information, within the company.

• Accident reports will be the most obvious source. It is important that the information recorded is adequate for risk assessments. We need to be able to investigate factors that contributed to the accident which means making a clear distinction between “cause of the accident” and “cause of injury”.
• Absence records may be another indication of problems. Health problems may not always be reported, so conditions which are made worse by the work situation, rather than being caused by it, are not so easy to spot.
• Maintenance records will usually show damage incidents.

Internal information is obviously very relevant to risk assessments. However, the absence of accidents is not a very good indication that all is well. Can you think why this is so?
Accidents should be rare occurrences. Quite often there is a large element of chance involved in the severity of an accident. Near misses, which are usually a much larger figure, are a better indicator of risk.

Care must be taken when using external sources of information. The numbers are larger, and any statistics are based on a larger sample, so are statistically more relevant. However, the type of industry covered may be much wider than your own situation. In the case of a very specialized situation, this may be the only indication of risk available. Different sources use a different multiplier when working out accident frequency rates, etc. so care needs to be taken when making comparisons.
When comparing data between organizations it is important to make sure that they have the same terms of reference. For example, when comparing Lost-Time Accident (LTA) incidence rates between two organizations (based on the number of employees), note the following:

• The two organizations may use different definitions for an LTA (many companies use “more than 1 day lost” for internal reporting of LTA, whereas some enforcement agencies use “more than 3 days lost” as their standard).
• There is no indication of injury severity.
• The figures may be for workers only and so may be misleading for an organization that makes wide use of contractors.
• The figures may not take full account of overtime or part-time workers (they may not adjust the numbers of workers to ‘full-time equivalents).
• Cultural differences – one organization may have a culture where they take time off even after a very minor injury; another organization might have a very strong ‘back to work’ culture where an injured worker might be brought back to work on restricted, or ‘light’ duties, in order to avoid recording a lost-time accident.
• There may be different risk levels between organizations due, for example, to the nature of the work, premises, equipment, etc.
• There may be different risk management arrangements in place relating, for example, to standards of risk assessment, training requirements, and standards of control.