Safety Culture

Principle Responsibility

In relation to occupational exposure, the principal parties responsible for protection and safety are employers and shall promote and maintain safety culture by:

1. Promoting individual and collective commitment to protection and safety at all levels of the organization.
2. Ensuring a common understanding of the key aspects of safety culture within the organization.
3. Providing the means by which the organization supports individuals and teams in carrying out their tasks safely and successfully, with account taken of the interactions between individuals, technology and the organization.
4. Encouraging the participation of workers and their representatives and other relevant persons in the development and implementation of policies, rules and procedures dealing with protection and safety.
5. Ensuring accountability of the organization and of individuals at all levels for protection and safety.
6. Encouraging open communication with regard to protection and safety within the organization and with relevant parties, as appropriate.
7. Encouraging a questioning and learning attitude, and discouraging complacency, with regard to protection and safety.
8. Providing means by which the organization continually seeks to develop and strengthen its safety culture.

Management System

Safety culture includes individual and collective commitment to safety by the leadership, management and personnel across and at all levels. The term ‘management system’ reflects and includes the concept of ‘quality control’ (controlling the quality of products) and its evolution through ‘quality assurance’ (the system for ensuring the quality of products) to form the whole ‘quality management system’ (the system for managing quality).

Regulatory Body

A set of organizational values can be used by the regulatory body to guide the behaviour of staff, to lay the foundations for an effective and efficient organization and to create a strong safety culture that is in line with the mission of the regulatory body.

These values should include the following:

• Independent, impartial, transparent, proportionate, objective and evidence-based decision making.
• Individual and collective commitment to safety, based on a scientific and technical approach.
• Acting in the public interest, demonstrating accountable public service and being accountable for decisions.
• Respect, fairness and courtesy in all the activities of the regulatory body.
• Openness and transparency in dealing with the public and other interested parties, in order to promote confidence and trust in the judgements and decisions of the regulatory body.
• Fostering mutual understanding and respect between the regulatory body and authorized parties through a frank, open and formal relationship.
• Frank, open and honest communications, including when dealing with appeals, problems and complaints both within and outside the regulatory body.
• A supportive environment with respect for personal integrity, expertise and professionalism;
• A commitment to learning and continuous improvement.
• A questioning attitude.

Technical Service Providers

For a service provider, safety culture should be established by:

1. Promoting the knowledge of relevant safety standards within the organization.
2. Carrying out a risk analysis of the procedures applied.
3. Establishing proper rules and procedures, and observing regulatory requirements to keep risks at a minimum.
4. Periodically evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of these rules and procedures.
5. Engaging the relevant management and staff.
6. Periodically training the staff, in accordance with an established training programme, to follow the rules and procedures correctly.
7. Discussing the established training programme with trained staff.
8. Periodically updating the training programmes and coordinating them with the requirements of legal and regulatory bodies, which should check the effectiveness of these programmes.
9. Disseminating and promoting knowledge of accidents and other incidents to learn from their occurrence, and any reoccurrence, and to improve the safety culture.
10. Eliciting safety related proposals from the staff through an incentive system.

Operators

The local rules and procedures should describe in detail the organizational structures through the national radiation protection programme, include provisions for various components of the programme which supports  the development of a safety culture.

Promotion of Safety Culture

A safety culture should be promoted and maintained at all levels within the organization. The management system should also address human factors by supporting good performance and good practices to prevent human and organizational failures. Attention should also be given to the design of equipment, the development of operating procedures, limits and conditions, as appropriate, training, and the use of safety systems to mitigate consequences of human error.

References

• Fundamental Safety Principles, IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SF-1, IAEA, Vienna (2006)
• Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources: International Basic Safety Standards, IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GSR Part 3, IAEA, Vienna (2014)
• Occupational Radiation Protection, IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GSG-7, IAEA, Vienna (2018)
• Organization, Management and Staffing of the Regulatory Body for Safety, IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GSG-12, IAEA, Vienna (2018)