Contractor Management in a Regulated Safety Case Regime
Authors: Byrne P.B. 
Published: December 2007

In the U.K., the safety case for an oil and gas installation is a legally required document which records how the installation is designed, constructed and operated to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable over the lifetime of the facility. With an offshore workforce drawn from many contracting companies, continuing co-operation between operator and contractor management and employees is essential if activities are to be conducted in conformity with the safety case. The contractor has specific duties especially towards his own employees, but responsibility for overall coordination lies with the operator.

The safety case provides a coherent structure for contractor management which facilitates the close alignment of the safety management systems of the operator and contractors. The paper will describe how this alignment is achieved, addressing the key H,S&E management activities required at the various stages of the life-cycle of a contract. Key aspects include:–Assessing the H,S&E competence of contractors via a registration and pre-qualification process.–Specifying the H,S&E requirements in the contract, including interfacing the operator and contractor safety management systems and defining their respective H,S&E responsibilities and controls that will be applied to the work.–Developing a joint programme of H,S&E performance monitoring, auditing and review.

Management of contractor H,S&E and the Safety Case

On a typical Shell Expro offshore installation, contractor employees, within a range of occupational groupings, together make up the largest proportion of the total staff (Table 1). In spite of the challenges of the hostile environment of the North Sea, their safety record is commendable. Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF) has reduced from 24.0 to 3.3 injuries per million manhours worked during the period 1980–1995, whilst the number of exposure hours has increased significantly from 17 million to 29 million. In spite of this improvement, contractors present the greatest scope to achieve a continued reduction in overall injury frequency rates.

In recent years in the U.K., there has been a shift in approach in legislation from prescription to goal setting and increased health and safety duties being put on the employer. This has been reflected in changes in our contracting strategy by giving contractors greater accountability. These changes, coupled with an increased expectation from the public and shareholders, resulted in the need to improve the level of control internally and the demonstration of this in the Corporate Safety Management System (SMS) and in safety cases. The intention was to provide an effective safety management system which covers both Shell and contractor executed activities.

The safety case contains the installation's SMS which shows how the operator manages contractor H,S&E and how the contractor achieves the H,S&E management of its own workforce and subcontractors. It contains a detailed breakdown of business processes into safety critical activities and a description of how the activity is to be managed, defining the accountabilities of key company and contractor staff, and identifying the relevant standards and procedures to be used (Table 2).

The safety case also requires that contractors must demonstrate that they already have an effective SMS and are prepared to contribute to the safety case. The ability of the contractor to manage the H,S&E aspects of the work is therefore an essential requirement and this must be demonstrated prior to contract award.

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