Resources Safety Division Executive Director – Simon Ridge
The drive to continuously improve safety and health in Western Australia’s resources industry is behind the development of Towards 2020 – a regulatory strategy for Resources Safety.
Officially launched by Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston at the Minesafe International 2017 conference, Towards 2020 is the Department of Mines and Petroleum’s vision for a safe and healthy resources industry.
Covering all legislation administered by the Resources Safety Division, it is the first of a series of high-level three-year rolling strategies.
Towards 2020 will guide the division’s efforts to raise awareness and seek compliance in the Western Australian resources sector.
It is important to measure our performance and success, to ensure resources are being applied appropriately.
Towards 2020 sets some outcomes to be achieved and how they can be measured.
This enables us to become a more efficient organisation and better utilise our resources in working with industry to achieve improved safety outcomes.
Towards 2020 describes the regulator’s goals, focus areas and measures of success for safety and health initiatives, and is presented as a live online resource that is easily accessible and can be updated as emerging issues and trends are identified.
Effective stakeholder engagement is an important focus as working together produces better outcomes.
If we’re not working together, then achieving those outcomes becomes a lot harder.
The role of data will also play an important role in achieving the department’s Towards 2020 vision.
Part of the Towards 2020 framework is about systematically analysing the data and finding what is hidden, which will assist us to improve safety and health.
This includes the use of independent expertise to help make sense of the data the department collects. A recent example involved giving departmental data to local universities for research projects.
Working with tertiary institutions like Edith Cowan, the University of Western Australia, and Curtin will help find previously hidden gems of knowledge, and it is only through increasing our knowledge that we are able to make better decisions.
The department collects so much information, so it is important we use that data to improve our understanding.
The evolution of the Safety Regulation System (SRS) is one example of how the department is doing this.
SRS is able to turn information around very quickly and can paint a clearer picture of incidents and their causes.
While data is important, inspectors in the field are still critical.
The analysis of data gives you a chance to develop accurate predictions. However, you need inspectors in the field, feeling the pulse on the ground.
To find out more about Towards 2020 go to www.dmp.wa.gov.au/towards2020
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