Step Change in Safety is the UK based partnership with the remit to make the UK the safest Oil and Gas Exploration and Production province in the world.

We are charged with achieving this vision through cooperation, collaboration, sharing and adopting of best practices and learnings. This website is a key resource in enabling that sharing and, in the spirit of co-operation, we invite all to use the website to share and contribute regardless of industry or country. Anyone may access all parts of the site and read and download resources, but you will need to register to contribute news items or to take part in the discussion forums (see Terms and Conditions for our guidelines about acceptable message content). Registering will also flag-up those items that we have classified with an Interest type that matches your profile selection by displaying the symbol adjacent to the item's date of publication whenever you are logged-in.

History
Step Change in Safety was founded in 1997 by the Oil and Gas industry trade associations with the aim of reducing all the UK offshore Oil and Gas industry injury rate by 50%.

By 2002 a new vision was created: “The UK is the safest place to work in the worldwide oil and gas industry by 2010” and Step Change moved to operate under the PILOT umbrella.

Membership of Step Change now includes the UK Health and Safety Executive and the Trade Unions. It is this broad stakeholder base that makes the Step Change group effective across the whole industry.

2008 review - why we need to take out the date

Dropping 2010 does not mean that we believe we will not achieve our vision by then; it means that we will not stop there!

The vital part to the vision is not the date, but making the UK the safest place to work in the world wide oil and gas industry. We will strive to achieve this every single year, be it 2009, 2010 or 2011. Once achieved, we intend to maintain UK as the safest place to work.

The original target envisaged measuring safety performance solely in relation to Lost Time Injury Frequency on offshore installations - this is too narrow, we need to include aviation safety, marine safety and the prevention of major accidents.

We now report performance against all these areas and the UK already is the safest in some areas.

The change reflects the maturing of Step Change into a longer term industry body that will continuously strive to improve safety in the UK offshore oil and gas industry for everyone involved.

Current Structure
Step Change strategies are set by a leadership team with day to day operations run by the support team.

Engagement with the industry is kept through active networks of:

• Elected Safety Representatives;
• Offshore Installation Managers and Supervisors;
• Safety Professionals;
• and company Focal Points.

These are the individuals consulted on what needs to be done and charged with ensuring that the Step Change programme is implemented.

Strategy
By 2005 a new strategy was developed for Step Change to ensure that the vision was achieved. The strategy is represented by a 3 pillar temple model built on a base of Leadership, Communication and Co-operation. This website is structured around the 3 strategies:

• recognising hazards and reducing risk;
• personal ownership for safety;
• asset integrity.

Current Developments
The resources on the website cover the activities and products we have already developed but we need to keep working if we are to achieve our vision. You can read more about the development work we are still carrying out.