Chemring Group PLC |Annual Report and Accounts 2012

24
Business review
Corporate responsibility review
Our approach
The Group acknowledges its obligation to ensure the responsible
operation of its business at all times, and is fully committed
to sound and ethical business conduct in its interaction
with key stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers,
business partners and suppliers), governments and regulators,
communities and society, and the environment.
The Board has overall responsibility for establishing and maintaining
the Group’s policies in this area, and the Chief Executive is
accountable to the Board for ensuring that the Group’s businesses
adhere to these policies.
The Board recognises that the long term success of the Group will
be enhanced by a positive interaction with all our stakeholders, and
has determined that the Group’s corporate responsibility initiatives
should be focused on the following key areas:
• Health and safety
• Employee support and development
• Environmental protection
• Ethical business conduct
We intend that our corporate responsibility approach should be
fully embedded within our businesses, and our senior management
bonus plan incorporates specific objectives in the above areas.
Further details of our approach are set out below.
In the workplace
Health and safety
Our policy and practices
The Board recognises that the highest levels of safety are required
in order to protect our employees, product end users and the
general public, whilst achieving growth and maintaining leadership
in the Group’s chosen markets. The Board believes that all incidents
and injuries are preventable, and that all employees have the right
to return home safely at the end of every working day. The long
term strategies we have adopted are designed to ensure that we
continually improve our performance and reduce risk.
The Chief Executive has overall responsibility for health, safety and
environmental matters across the Group. The Group Director of
Safety reports directly to the Chief Executive, and is responsible
for the effective administration and implementation of the Group’s
health, safety and environment strategy. The Group Director of
Safety is a member of the Group Executive Committee and reports
on the performance of all businesses against agreed targets and
objectives. The Chief Executive reports monthly to the Board on all
key health and safety issues.
The Board requires that all businesses systematically manage their
health and safety hazards, set objectives, monitor progress by
regular measurement, audit and review, and take additional action
where necessary. Each Managing Director is responsible for the
management of health and safety within their business, and for
providing adequate resources to satisfy the Board’s requirements.
All Managing Directors have health and safety related objectives
incorporated within their annual bonus plan. Managers in our
businesses are required to enforce procedures, and to provide
leadership and commitment to promote and embrace a positive
health and safety culture. We emphasise the importance of
individual responsibility for health and safety at all levels of the
organisation, and expect employees to report potential hazards,
to be involved in implementing solutions, and to adhere to rules
and procedures.
We recognise that a key element in the continual improvement
of health and safety management is sharing best practice and
lessons learnt from incidents across all of the Group’s companies.
An alert system is in place that formally ensures key findings
from incidents are quickly communicated to all operational
sites and actions taken as appropriate. Accidents, incidents and
near misses are investigated, with actions generated to prevent
recurrence. A Health, Safety and Environment Technical Group,
with representatives from across the Group, supports continual
improvement through the development and promotion of good
health and safety practice.
Compliance audits are conducted using external consultancy
firms, and all findings are subject to corrective action reviews
to ensure closure.
We continue to drive improvements in our process safety
management systems, by investing in automation, remote
operations and infrastructure, and also by improving our risk
control systems, layers of protection, asset integrity, and culture.
With the exception of Mecar, all of our businesses are certified
to the international health and safety management system
OHSAS18001.
Safety is a major item for consideration by the Group’s Risk
Management Committee. All businesses are required to produce
a risk register from which the top five health and safety risks and
improvement actions to reduce the risks to as low as reasonably
practicable are reviewed on a monthly basis.
The Group has committed to substantial investments in
manufacturing facilities that will, in addition to improving
productivity, improve the safety of the workforce by reducing the
levels of risk. We apply particular attention to those facilities that
compare unfavourably with their peers, and systems and processes
are in place to facilitate the sharing of information across the
Group. Our ongoing safety improvement activities are focused on
ensuring that our buildings, processes and products are as safe as
reasonably practicable for our employees and product users.
Our performance
Energetic events
Whilst we take all incidents seriously, we pay particular attention to
those where employees sustain injury due to an energetic event.
On 14 May 2012, an operator at our Mecar facility in Belgium
suffered severe burns when a pyrotechnic composition ignited. She
subsequently died from her injuries. All production was stopped
at Mecar following this incident, and an in-depth investigation was
instigated, led by a senior divisional director. Findings were grouped
into two – those relating to the root cause, and those relating to
other peripheral arrangements or practices where it was found
that further improvements in safety and working practices could
be made. Two “Alerts” were then issued to all Group companies,
which stipulated the urgent actions required to identify and close
any gaps that might lead to a repeat incident, and these are being
monitored to closure. Mecar supported the operator and her family
through very difficult times, and we continue to extend our support
and deepest sympathies to her family, friends and work colleagues.
We had no energetic events during the year that caused significant
damage to buildings or equipment.
Other lost time events
We collect and report lost time incident rates using the US
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules, and
we were pleased to see a significant improvement in performance
from a rate of 1.28 lost time incidents per 100 employees last year
Chemring Group PLC Report and Accounts 2012