Navsafe 03

DCN RADM Rowan Moffitt addresses the Navsafe 03 conference. He is responsible as Navy’s Corporate Safety Manager. Photo by ABPH Cristine Mercer.

“Commanding Officers today have responsibility for OHS in their ships and establishments, yet in many cases have no direct control over the infrastructure and maintenance that goes into them...we are constantly seeking clearer lines of responsibility.” RADM Rowan Moffitt.

By Graham Davis
The HMAS Darwin man overboard tragedy and a number of “close call” incidents are signposts that the Royal Australian Navy must remind itself continually to focus on safety as a key part of daily business, the Deputy Chief of Navy, RADM Rowan Moffitt, said recently.

His call for increased safety vigilance came when he presented the keynote address to Navsafe 03, a two-day conference held at Darling Harbour in March.

The conference, organised under the auspices of the Director General Navy Certification, Safety and Acceptance Agency (DGNCSA), CAPT Mark Sander, was attended by 180 people on the first day and 300 on the second.

With many top-level uniformed and civilian speakers, the conference was directed at RAN personnel and Defence civilians with safety responsibilities:

Day 1 targeted the “strategic level”, specifically senior officers and civilian equivalents considering safety governance matters.

Day 2 targeted the “operational level”, a less senior audience exploring issues of safety management and discussing future developments.

The background to the conference is that the current B5 Strategic Objective (part of the Keep Navy Safe strategic theme) is for Navy to instill a strong organisational safety culture. The aim of this measure is to ensure that safety becomes integral to the way Navy conducts business so that operational performance is enhanced and a positive, no blame safety culture is developed.

With an overall theme of “Keep Navy Safe”, the Navsafe 03 conference was seen as an excellent opportunity to progress this objective by allowing all personnel to debate safety, provide feedback, and receive an update on the Navy Safety (Navsafe) program.

In his keynote address, RADM Moffitt reminded the audience that his role as DCN included responsibility as the Navy’s Corporate Safety Manager, on behalf of Chief of Navy. He emphasised the importance of turning strategic direction into safety outcomes, but he could not do this alone and everyone had to play a part.

The employee has responsibilities under OHS legislation, not just the employer. This means everyone has a role in making the Navy a safer place to work. Yet there have been instances of people in positions of responsibility failing to act to curtail unsafe behaviour, and examples of Navy failing to learn from its mistakes.

DCN’s message was balanced by recognition that good work was being done in some areas. He observed that Defence re-organisation over the past ten years had done as much to complicate the safety issue as it has to simplify it, stating “Commanding Officers today have responsibility for OHS in their ships and establishments, yet in many cases have no direct control over the infrastructure and maintenance that goes into them. We rely increasingly on other people and organisations doing their jobs correctly, and we are constantly seeking clearer lines of responsibility. Defence is a unique environment and these boundary issues have to be overcome.”

RADM Moffitt believes the way forward relies on progress being made in the two distinct but interrelated areas of organisation and culture.

Organisation – in response to a paper from Vice Chief of the Defence Force (VCDF), proposing improvements to the management of OHS in Defence, the Defence Committee has approved the creation of a new Defence OHS and Compensation Branch, under the Head of the Defence Personnel Executive (HDPE).

DCN said “The new branch subsumes the Defence Safety Management Agency (DSMA), the Defence Workplace Safety Project (DWSP), Defcare, and Compensation policy. Also associated with this change is the formation of a new Defence OHS Committee, of which I am a member.”

DCN explained that, even with the formation of the new Defence branch, the Navy had to continue developing its own safety systems and address Service-specific safety issues itself. He cited examples of work currently in progress:

• The organisation of Navy’s various Safety Boards is being examined with a view to improving their processes and effectiveness.
• Director Navy Safety Systems (DNAVSAFE) and Training Authority Initial Training, Leadership & Management (ITLM) are seeking to clarify the continuum of OHS training required at various levels of management, both ashore and afloat; and
• DGNCSA has a project underway to create a Navy Regulatory System, enhancing operational integrity through the effective management of risk in consequence categories such as safety, environment, operations, finance and reputation. This regulatory system will involve, amongst other things, the introduction of a Navy-wide Hazard Log to help identify, record and manage risk in Navy platforms and establishments.

Culture – DCN said the Commonwealth regulator on safety, Comcare, has identified that ‘too great an acceptance of risk’ is a contributory factor in many accidents. “Defence people, Navy people, use equipment or carry out procedures because it’s what they’ve been provided with, or its what they’ve been told to do. But how many have the courage to speak out if they see safety at stake, and how many supervisors are prepared to listen and act? We have enough indicators to suggest that our strike rate could be better and, thus, it has to be better! Otherwise, incidents will continue to happen.”

Quoting the ‘Swiss Cheese’ example, made famous by the well known analyst and author James Reason, RADM Moffitt said that without an alert and pro-active approach Navy will do nothing to reduce the probability of the holes in the Swiss cheese lining up, thereby potentially creating the biggest disasters of all. This is where organisation and culture come together.

The challenge is finding a method by which we develop the required culture.

“We need to understand what we are trying to do in practical terms, and how the process might work”, DCN said, “Like all good management initiatives, the measures to reinvigorate our safety culture should be practical, feasible to implement, and measurable. We need to define our goal, identify our path to that goal, and measure our progress along that path. The process has to be understood by our sailors, and should not carry with it an unrealistic burden of extra work.”

Finally, RADM Moffitt said that, somewhere within the organisational and cultural changes, Navy also has to streamline and improve the standard of its reporting on safety. “Effective reporting allows us receive and act upon good quality information, and have the statistics available to identify problem areas and measure trends.”

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