MOD RFA Shipping – Class Safety and Environmental Reviews

The Challenge

During a 5-year period, legislation can change, individual ships in each class can go through several docking periods or work packages, and in-service feedback is received. All of this information must be assessed for its impact on the Safety and Environmental Case, making the process extremely resource-intensive for the PA’s team.

Our Solution

Our innovative solution was to hold an annual Class Safety and Environmental Review (CSER) for each Ship Class.  This provides stakeholders with an opportunity to comprehensively review all safety and environmental protection evidence against the existing SECR. It also allows for a formal annual review of any changes in legislation requirements and enables the PA to respond more quickly to emerging safety or environmental issues.

The CSER has been implemented with developed CSER Terms of Reference and is now an integral part of the PA’s Safety and Environmental Plan (SEMP). The CSER will review all information reported since either the last SECR update or the last CSER meeting and include, as a minimum:

• Platform Status
• Safe Operating Envelope
• Accidents, incidents, near miss reports, S2022s, OPDEFs
• Certification Status
• Ship class safety and environmental issues raised in other committees and working groups

Client Benefits

The key benefits of the CSER process are:

• Early identification of issues arising, that impact the status of the safety and/or environmental protection argument for the platforms
• Improved Duty Holder oversight of the status of the safety and environmental protection arguments for their platforms between issues of the SECR
• A reduction in PA resource needed to facilitate full SECR reviews

The legacy of the work has seen a measurable improvement in the team’s ability to manage their safety and environmental protection arguments and meet their S&EP targets.

Safeguard Engineering has established a trusted and productive ongoing partnership with the PA’s team as a specialist provider of safety and environmental protection services. We facilitate annual CSER meetings and support the update and review cycle of the platform SECRs, ensuring continuous compliance and improvement.