High quality health and safety management is a top priority for us. Over the past twelve years we have established a reputation for excellence in this area, but recognise that if we are to maintain this reputation, we must constantly update our approach to meet the needs of our business.

Successful health and safety management requires the development and implementation of effective management systems, processes and procedures. Crucially, however, it is the commitment of every individual associated with our organisation that makes those systems, processes and procedures function properly. Health and safety will always be a line management responsibility. The challenge we faced in 2002, and continue to face today, is to give our managers the tools they need to fulfil this responsibility.

Health and Safety Policy Commitment Statement

2002 Health and Safety Performance Objectives

Health and safety performance

Occupational health

SAFELEC 2010

2002 initiatives

TXU integration

Health and Safety Policy Commitment Statement

In September 2002, we launched a revised Health and Safety Policy Commitment Statement to re-emphasise our commitment to best practice standards of health and safety management. The statement reads:

'We are committed to identifying and managing health and safety risks, meeting legislative requirements and achieving best practice standards. We'll do this by:

• Recognising the value and importance of our people and ensuring we all play a part in creating a safe and healthy working environment for ourselves, those we work with, and the public;

• Establishing an environment and culture that drives the prevention of injury and ill health;

• Providing our people with the right balance of knowledge, understanding and skills to enable all work to be carried out safely;

• Providing a clear and effective health & safety management system and delivering against challenging targets;

• Continuously improving our health and safety culture and performance

In this way we’ll deliver a performance we're proud of’

A copy of this Statement was issued to every employee in the UK business, both as a reminder, and as a pre-cursor to the launch of a revised Health and Safety Management System, planned for 2003.

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Every year, the UK Business Team sets challenging health and safety targets for each UK business unit. In 2002, the four targets set were as follows:

• Reduce Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) by 10%;
• Reduce contractor Injury Frequency Rate (IFR) by 10%;
• Establish effective reporting and analysis of sickness absence and demonstrate continuous improvement through business specific targets;
• Each business unit prepare and deliver a health & safety plan to include as a minimum:
• A review of performance against 2001 targets / objectives;
• Business unit-specific targets and objectives for 2002, demonstrating continuous improvement;
• The strategy for delivering targets and objectives in 2002.

Although 50% of our businesses did achieve each of the first two 'numerical' business objectives, the UK business as a whole did not (as illustrated in the chart below):

We will continue to aim for improvements in our incident rates in 2003.

Systems for the effective reporting of sickness absence were established during 2002 and each business unit is now committed to improving their performance in this area through targeted management initiatives.

The majority of business units developed and implemented a written health and safety plan for 2002, and succeeded in delivering many of their objectives for the year. We recognise, however, that we must achieve 100% success in this area if we are to achieve the best practice standards of health and safety performance that we set ourselves.

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Health and safety performance

We regret that the following incidents involving Powergen employees and contractors in the UK were reported under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) (1995) in 2002:

Internally, we report on incidents with lower severity than those reportable under RIDDOR. These are summarised below:

The Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) provides a measure of the total number of injuries and diseases per 100,000 hours worked. For the twelve months up to December 2002, the TRIR for Powergen Employees was 0.34, or one injury per 294,000 hours worked. The equivalent figure for Contractors was 0.97, or 1 injury per 103,000 hours worked.

The Injury Frequency Rate (IFR) is an alternative measure of safety performance. This shows the number of Lost Time Injuries per 100,000 hours worked. For the 12 months up to December 2002, the IFR for employees was 0.16, and for contractors 0.59.

Employee and contractor TRIR and IFR trend data for 2000, 2001 and 2002 are shown below:

These figures show that our rates have increased slightly during 2002. We continue to work hard to ensure that this trend is reversed in 2003. It is important to note, however, that viewed over the longer term our rates are very low. For example, in 1989 our employee IFR stood at 1.29 compared with 0.16 at the end of 2002.

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Occupational health

We have in place a comprehensive occupational health programme which supports the needs of our people and business. We are concerned about the effects of work on health and the effects of health on work.

We were honoured to be awarded the 2002 Astor Trophy for Occupational Health by The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). This award reflects the hard work which our Occupational Health team, in conjunction with each of our business units, has put in over recent years.

During 2002, Business Healthcare - an external Occupational Health Consultancy, carried out a fundamental review of occupational health within Powergen UK. As a result of this review, and in response to the occupational health issues within business units, the following areas were addressed in the year:

• benchmarking of the full range of Powergen occupational health services with similar organisations;

• introduction of a nurse-led occupational health function which works closely with each business to deliver a more effective and responsive service;

• development of an audit system for Occupational Health;

• investigation of appropriate quality systems for the collection and analysis of occupational health data;

• development of Service Level Agreements with business units;

• formalisation of the company approach to stress management;

• further development of our rehabilitation support systems to assist injured or ill employees in their return to work;

• development and implementation of a 'Health Promotion Calendar' which maps out different topics for promotion during the year;

• delivery of advice and information in regard to stress management during 'European Health & Safety Week';

• investigation of the use of alternative therapies to assist in the management of ill-health;

• successful roll-out of the annual flu vaccination programme.

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SAFELEC 2010

Back in 2000, the UK Government launched the 10-year 'Revitalising Health and Safety' strategy to give new energy to health and safety at work. In response, the electricity industry developed 'SAFELEC 2010' - which sets out how we as an industry will contribute to the Government's targets. We are fully committed to SAFELEC 2010, and have therefore committed to achieving the following targets by 2010:

• reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers from work-related injury and ill health by 50 per cent;

• reduce the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health by 20 per cent;

• reduce the incidence rate of fatal and major injuries by 50 per cent ;

• to achieve half the improvement under each target by 2004.

We have also made a commitment to achieving four additional occupational health targets during 2003:

• To continue to seek improved methods of managing work-related stress;

• to reduce the incidence rate of work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (WRMSD) by 12 per cent by 2004, and reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers due to WRMSD by 15 per cent by 2004;

• to promote the development of better systems for collecting the necessary occupational health data to obtain a clearer picture of current levels of work-related illness within the electricity industry;

• to develop initiatives for improving rehabilitation back to work of employees off work due to ill health.

During 2002, along with the rest of the electricity industry in the UK, we have devoted a significant amount of time and effort into establishing systems which effectively measure progress against these targets. We are now in a position where we are able to do this and will soon be able to report back on our progress to date.

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2002 Initiatives

In 2002, we have been busy in a number of areas as summarised below:

• Health and Safety Management System review
  Our business has changed fundamentally over recent years, and in 2002 we commissioned a thorough review of our existing management system. This review has prompted us to develop a fresh approach, based around a set of clear 'Minimum Management Standards', which will be implemented during the course of 2003;
• Health and safety audit review
  In order that we can effectively monitor the implementation, and ongoing compliance with our revised Health and Safety Management System, we have also reviewed our existing audit arrangements and are redeveloping these to fit with our new approach;
• Electrical & mechanical safety rules
  These were fully reviewed and updated during the year to ensure that the continued safety of employees during non-operational works;
• Contract and contractor management
  Following two serious incidents involving contractors during 2002, we have revised and re-issued our corporate guidance on contractor Health and Safety management, and also launched a new four-day in-house contract and contractor management training course;
• Drugs & alcohol policy
  We recognise that drugs and alcohol misuse represent potentially significant risks to our business unless we tackle these issues head on. We have therefore developed, in conjunction with our business units, trade unions and external agencies a drugs and alcohol policy, which aims to support those with a genuine problem but at the same time to ensure that there is no adverse impact on health or safety;
• Wind farm safety
  This is a developing part of Powergen's businesses and we are working closely with external agencies to help develop best practice guidelines.

2003 Health and Safety Performance Objectives

For 2003, we have set the following targets:

• Sustain no more than 16 Major or Fatal injuries to Powergen UK and contractor staff across the UK Business (this is in line with our 10-year commitment under SAFELEC 2010 to reduce major and fatal injuries by 50%);
• Each business unit to maintain a Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) below a threshold of best practice (as defined below). If the TRIR is above the threshold of best practice at the beginning of the performance period significant and speedy action must be taken to reduce the level to below this threshold;
• Each business unit to set and achieve a target for sickness absence for Powergen staff commensurate with best practice standards;
• Each business unit to prepare and deliver a health & safety plan to include, as a minimum, the following:
• A review of performance against 2002 targets and objectives;
• Business-specific targets and objectives for 2003, demonstrating continuous improvement;
• The strategy for delivering targets and objectives for 2003.

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TXU integration

At the end of 2002, we successfully completed the acquisition of the UK assets of TXU-Europe. The process of integrating health and Safety in the two organisations is now well underway and we are addressing a range of issues including:

• Staffing of the health and safety function and within-business health and safety support;
• Effective reporting of Health and Safety statistics using a new intranet- based reporting tool;
• Provision of an effective occupational health function across the new organisation;
• Integration of TXU activities under our Health and Safety Management System;
• Integration of Powergen UK and TXU Safety Rules;
• Reward and recognition of excellent health and safety performance.
  
  

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