A key provider of water supply and sewerage services in Australia acknowledges its responsibility to ensure workplace safety and minimise the risk of serious injury or fatality (SIF) to its employees and the public. Seeking continuous improvement, the provider partnered with Incident Analytics, to conduct an independent analysis of incidents over a two-year period, focusing on governance, reporting, and the effectiveness of critical controls in high-risk work environments. Through the Meta IncidentAnalysis® (MIA) methodology, 685 incidents and near misses were reviewed, aiming to enhance understanding of human, local, and organisational factors contributing to SIF potential incidents, thus informing the refinement of preventive measures and control strategies.

Results

The analysis identified 114 incidents with serious injury or fatality potential (SIFp), half of which involved motor vehicles. The provider recognised the need to redirect resources toward SIFp incidents and enhance critical control effectiveness in high-risk work. They developed a Power BI dashboard to summarise findings, categorising areas for improvement in Governance, CriticalControl Management, Systems, and People capability.

The provider is prioritising enhancing safety in the following high-risk contexts:

• Vehicle incidents: unsecured loads, collision, loss of control, pedestrian, and rollaway risk.
• Workers being frequently exposed to animal threats.
• Working at heights with opportunities for increased focus on critical controls.
• Hazardous substance (e.g. chlorine) with opportunities to increase rigour of risk assessments.

Outcomes

Guided by these insights, the provider has implemented immediate containment measures to mitigate risks to its workforce and the public, with a particular emphasis on bolstering critical controls in identified high-risk activities. This proactive approach has led to the development of ongoing initiatives, including the integration of a new high-potential category in their reporting system, collaboration with Incident Analytics to enhance staff skills and engagement in critical control assurance, and the implementation of a comprehensive critical control verification framework. Moreover, lessons learned from the disproportionate allocation of resources towards low-consequence incidents prompted a renewed focus on serious injury or fatality potential(SIFp) incidents, highlighting the need to strengthen critical controls. This realisation emphasised the importance of accommodating human reliability variations in high-risk work and the implementation of effective risk assessment measures.

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