Safety Health Environment & Quality (SHEQ)

SHEQ Processes - Government Perspective

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE), other UK government agencies including the British Standard Institute (BSI) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and management consultancy firms promote an 'Issue Management' process for SHEQ and project management.

The management systems include;

1. Occupational Health & Safety
2. ISO standard for Environment
3. ISO Standard for Quality
4. Prince 2 for Project Management (see below)

In many respects, the management processes are identical in that they typically contain the following stages;

• Initial Status Review - to find the starting point for the system by establishing what needs to be changed or maintained by the process
• OH&S Policy - to demonstrate the organisations' commitment to OH&S
• Organising - the management structure and processes to be used to deliver the policy
• Planning and Implementation - the development of plans for continual improvement within the policy
• Investigations and Response - to follow up on day to day sub-standard performance
• Audit - the process of internal and external reviews to allow in depth evaluation of performance against the policy
• Measuring Performance - Key Performance Indicator (KPI) evaluation of all aspects of the policy by management and communication of those KPIs to all interested parties including the workforce and shareholders

As an example, the following diagram is published both by the BSI in their BS 8800:2004 document and by the HSE in their Health & Safety Guidance Booklet HSG 65 (available on line). The key issue throughout the approach is to allow effective communication between the parties involved so that the required feedback is effective.

Elements of successful health and safety management based on the approach in HSG65

Sources of UK Government Information

There is extensive information on line about each of the SHEQ topics under discussion here. A web search for any of the information referred to will serve as a starting point for anyone requiring an introduction to the subject areas. The following web sites have related information on them;

• HSE: www.hse.gov.uk
• DTI: www.dti.gov.uk
• OGC Official Website (managed and published by APMG in partnership with Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and TSO.): www.prince2.org.uk
• Prince2 (ILX Group): www.prince2.com
• BSI: www.bsi-global.com

PRojects IN Controlled Environments - Prince 2

Prince 2 is DTI's (UK Government Department of Trade and Industry) guidance for project management and primarily aimed a larger projects. The stages are variously referred to as gateways or key stages. The stages are:

1. Starting a project (including provision of the project mandate)
2. Initiating a project
3. Controlling a stage and managing product delivery
4. Managing stage boundaries
5. Closing a project

Prince 2 demonstrably has its own naming conventions for gateways but the management process is broadly similar to the SHEQ process described above.

Prince2 is described on the following web site: www.prince2.org.uk

SHEQ Processes - Organisation Perspective

Safety Health, Environment and Quality Management is an all embracing title; it will mean different things to different organisations. Some organisations include CDM Management within their SHEQ teams, some prefer to leave CDM Management within their operational teams. There are no hard and fast rules. The main SHEQ processes are tied into 'ISO Standards'. Fire safety is often tacked on so that Safety Teams include this element under a unified safety umbrella. The ToolKit CS™ product includes the following features where the SHEQ Options is licensed:

• CDM Management (CDM Regulations)
• Occupational Health & Safety Management (8000 / 18000; not yet an ISO standard)
• Environmental Management (ISO 14000)
• Quality Management (ISO 9000)
• Fire Safety

Organisations have adopted the principles of Prince2 as a management process, have adapted Prince2 for their own environment and renamed the process to suit their local needs. There is a proliferation of similar processes each with similar dependencies each requiring a sign off before that stage is 'completed'.

ToolKit CS™ SHEQ

The ToolKit CS™ SHEQ application software provides a framework for managing any process involving Prince2 related models. The product does this by allowing the user to set up;

1. Policy documents for each management process. The policy documents are kept in library folders which can be 'read only' and the documents can be internal or external to the product.
2. Organising processes required through both library documents and project templates so that day to day planning and implementation can be defined and monitored within the project area of the software.
3. Audit Processes with template questionnaires, audit schedules through tasking and competence recording of auditors against organisations.
4. Measuring Performance through the recording of audits responses including;
   1. Time & date of audit
   2. Auditors details and competence records
   3. Evidence collected by the auditor to support the answers given
   4. Task list of corrective action to be carried out if required
   5. Date of follow up action and next audit
   6. Feedback to KPI process