I think this highlights there is a lack of undertsanding with respect to culture change and how this affects a business (worrying given these are senior management). I know and you know that the 'elevated' statistics will likely be as a result of the changes you're putting in place. I'm assuming there is a clearer way of reporting and a no-blame approach being promoted; thus people are more likley to share and report - which you can highlight to management.

I think you will have to play the long game to a certain degree to get a few months worth of data behind you to highlight to management its truly as a result of your culture chnage. The key question to throw back at them is 'would they rather not know what's going on'? I agree with your views on bonus incentives - never a good move!

Stick at it - its because they know now what they didn't know before - and they don't like it!

Jamie

I have been asked the question but they accepted my answers which were: we have a better incident reporting system so you will get more reports but they will drop as the new system gets to grips with managing the underlying issues. Near misses are generally very good thing, they demonstrate that people are engaged in your H&S policies; otherwise they would not bother reporting them.

Where do they think all of these new accidents are coming from!? Do they think that they are being made up or do they prefer them not to be reported?

I saw a 120% increase in 'reported' accidents YoY- this was due to the same reason you have seen a rise.

We then had a real picture of what was going on and could focus on the issues.

Stick to your guns.

I think that any bonus for lack of accidents is a sure fire way to get some managers to use a carpet and a brush!

Good luck

Andy

Mersey

What is been said so far is a good reflection on your sterling work

If your SMT are doubting your integraty how comes they employed you in the first place, did they expect you to sit at a desk producing worthless risk assessments , pretty graphs etc?

You stick to your guns and show them the true picture, then mention HSE fines. see the colour drain from their rosey cheeks.

Mersey

I have also been working on a culture change and the accident rates increased over the first few months as employyes were reporting accidents that they never did previosly, Near miss reports have increased dramatically also, The processes and procedures havent changed but this demonstates the culture is changing for the better. keep at it!

If you look at the historic accident records you will almost certainly see that a fairly high proportion of the accidents recorded are quite serious. Thats because they couldnt be hidden. Its easy to hide a stanley knife cut. Less easy to hide an amputation. In a really bad culture there will only be a record of RIDDORs.

If you look at your accidents now you will probably see that a much higher proportion of accidents are "minor" or "near misses" than previously.

Rate all your accidents on a simple scale and compare serious to not serious. Get them to focus on that comparison - you should be able to go back through the accident book and demonstrate a change in time. Then get them to change their performance bonus so that an element is related to having a very high ratio of "minor" to "serious" accidents. They will be competing with each other to get their teams to report minor accidents. 

ONce you are doing that then you could start looking at what action they take after a report. Given them more credit for actions taken on the back of a dangerous situation or a near miss than you give them for an action from an injury accident or a RIDDOR.

You can make some nice graphs!