CASE STUDY

Critical Risk Program Review

  • A large utility operating in a high-risk environment wanted an independent view of its critical risk program. The organisation was committed to safety and had a program in place, but wanted to understand whether it was focused on the right things — whether the controls being verified were genuinely the ones that could prevent a fatality, and whether the program was delivering the insight senior leaders needed.

  • An independent review combining desktop analysis with interviews across the organisation.

  • A set of recommendations for the critical risk program restructure, and a framework for change management.

Our Approach

Rod Maule conducted an independent review combining desktop analysis with interviews across the organisation. Rather than benchmark the program against documentation standards, the review examined where attention was actually being directed versus where the real risk profile of the business sat.

The central finding was that the program had too many controls in scope. With a long list to verify, leaders could not get the depth of insight needed on any of them. Observations were being made and recorded, but the quality of those conversations — the genuine understanding of whether controls were working at the point of risk — was diluted by the breadth of coverage.

Recommendation

The review recommended a significant narrowing of focus: identify the two or three most critical controls for each high-risk activity — the controls that, if absent, would allow a fatality to occur — and build the entire verification program around those. Everything else could be managed through standard compliance processes.

The logic is straightforward. If you ask leaders to verify twenty controls, they move through the list. If you ask them to verify two or three, and you educate them deeply on what those controls are and why they matter, they will have real conversations about whether those controls are genuinely in place and functioning.

The Outcome

The organisation received a set of recommendations for restructuring its critical risk program around a tighter, more purposeful set of controls. The review gave the leadership team an independent view of where their attention had been directed versus where the risk profile of the business required it, and a clear framework for making the shift.

This engagement was lead by:

Rod Maule
Principal, HSE Critical Risk and Safety Culture

What this
engagement shows

A critical risk program with twenty priorities has no priorities. The organisations that protect their people most effectively are the ones that have done the hard work of identifying the two or three controls that genuinely stand between a worker and a fatality — and built a culture of leadership around verifying those, deeply and consistently.

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