In my experience it is not normal for someone who is to be interviewed to have a advocate present, at least not for an accident investigation interview, unless the interview is being conducted by an authority ie police or regulator. It is not uncommon for someone attending a disciplinary interview to have an advocate (trade union representative) present at their request.

As long as it is made clear that the interview is part of the accident investigation and not for disciplinary reasons I see no good reason why an advocate should attend. It is good practice to ensure that information acquired from interviews for accident investigations is not made available to anyone who may be conducting a separate disciplinary investigation.

This is an interesting question, I routinely carry out safety investigation statements including detailed Q&A sessions to get to root causes.

we recently had a fairly serious incident which resulted in a disciplinary investigation. The union refused to accept the accident investigation as the person did not have a second person present which is 'right' under company policy at disciplinary investigations and that when he gave the statement he was not warned that it may be used in an on the disc investigation

(even though it says on the form, "this form may be used in legal proceedings")

all we did was repeat all the same questions and then challenge him if he gave any different answers!
same result longer process!

we now offer a 2nd person

I've been appointed Lead Investigator for several serious accident/incident investigations and when it comes to interviews I always ensure that there is a mutually agreed 3rd person in the room. More often than not this is a Union H&S Rep but in the event that the person involved is not a union member then, as previously mentioned, it would be a 3rd party who does not have a direct involvement in the event.

Before the interview gets underway I explain the process, explain clearly that the investigation is not a disciplinery but a safety investigation with the intent of identifying what went wrong and how we can stop it from happening again, but I'll also mention that in the event of a violation a discipline investigation could be launched. I also make it clear that in that event I will not be carrying out the disciplinery investigation, I put particular emphasis on this as I want/need the interviewee to be absolutely open with their answers.

Once the interview has been concluded I'll ask the interviewee to go through my notes with me so that we are both clear on the collected info and then I'll ask them to sign and date if they're happy. I'll also ask the 'observer' to sign and date the notes just to demonstrate that a witness has been present.

I'm not aware of any legal implications of any of the above but having been present when enforcing body's inspectors have done their interviews I've adopted a similar process and (so far at least) it's served me well.

I think it is, as other posts have said to have an 'honest broker' in the room. A union rep may not be without prejudice, so careful selection is required to a find a mutually agreeable individual. For an employee to have a representative indicates it may be a disciplinary which clearly it is not in the first instance because you are information gathering. It would only be once the investigation is complete and all the facts assessed that a decision would be made if there is anyone culpable and disciplinary hearings required.

site based (Not erious) accidents thatI investigated and conducted interviews, I didnt have anyone site in with the person being interviewed. I let it open to them, if they wanted someone then so be it. But I felt that if there were someone else in the room they may not answer the questions as they would if it were only the two of us.

As long as the interviewee is clear about what the purpose of the accident investigation is, primarily to find the root cause so that further accidents of the same type can be eliminated or reduced then the need for a second person to be present is not necessary.

However, if the interviewee requests that a second person be present I can see no reason why not to accomodate the request, as long as the second person is independant. I feel that making the interview as relaxed as possible and taking as much time as necessary is the best way of extracting the information in order to complete an accurate and factual report on the incident.

As mentioned by another member, the company policy we operate here asks for a signature from the interviewee to declare that the information he has given is factually correct and he/she is happy with the level of detail recorded.