Leading the way in rail safety
Working with Network Rail and other industry partners has led to a safer railway, says former ISLG Chair Stuart Webster-Spriggs.
Having recently concluded his role as Chair of the Infrastructure Safety Leadership Group (ISLG) for a second term, Stuart Webster-Spriggs shares some of their key initiatives and how health and safety in rail has changed.
Stuart Webster-SpriggsHSQES Director, VolkerRail UK
Can you tell us a little about your career journey to becoming HSQES Director at VolkerRail?
My career in the rail industry started in 2001. I joined GrantRail as a quality assurance officer, which subsequently evolved to VolkerRail Ltd. Throughout my career, I've held various positions, always within the health, safety, quality, environment, and sustainability (HSQES) directorate. In 2011, I was appointed the HSQES Director at VolkerRail. I've spent the past 13+ years in that position, shaping the team and ensuring that VolkerRail is a compliant, effective, efficient, safe, and responsible organisation.
You’ve recently finished your tenure as Chair of the ISLG. Can you share some of the key initiatives that the ISLG is focused on to improve rail safety?
The key ones involve the effective management of the risk associated with on-track plant. ISLG also has a fatigue working group, managing fatigue holistically in the rail industry. And its own road risk group, which is looking at aspects of occupational driving within the rail industry and its unique challenges.
We've done a lot of work on slips, trips, and falls with Network Rail recently. We did various roadshows throughout 2024, with more planned, and we’re really seeing the benefits. The statistics are going in the right direction.
The Runaway Risk Model, which is a collaboration between ISLG, RSSB, and Network Rail, supports decision-making in the management of runaway risk assessments, and a pilot is now in discussion.
Other interesting project areas are ‘work as done’ versus ‘work as imagined’, improvements in site delivery management, and geotechnology. Running alongside those, ISLG supports various areas for Network Rail. ISLG is involved in a great deal more—that’s why it’s beneficial to have over 70 members.
What motivated you to take on the role as Chair?
I really wanted to get ISLG into the position of being the go-to industry organisation in terms of consultation, making change for the benefit of the entire railway community. I'd also previously been Chair of the Fatigue Working Group under the Rail Wellbeing Alliance. I've always been engaged, but I felt it was the right time again to take the chairmanship again.
You were also previously Chair of ISLG in 2015/16. What have been the most significant safety improvements between your tenures?
It's the understanding of the risk that infrastructure contractors face on a day-to-day basis.
It’s also the understanding of Network Rail as the client in the infrastructure community. It’s about two-thirds of the whole safety-critical competencies of personnel out there. It's really the biggest part of the industry in terms of putting people out on the infrastructure.
Therefore, the safety improvements have been significant. If you look at the actual stats between 2015 and today, we're in a better place. We've moved away from talking about accident frequency rates because they are at a very low and consistent level. We now talk about the combination of the Fatality Weighted Index alongside the lost time injury frequency rate. You can see that we are continually improving in making sure everyone goes home safe, every day.
The ISLG is built on cross-industry collaboration. Can you share how this benefits rail as a sector?
As part of my chairmanship over the past 2 years, I really wanted to make sure collaboration worked. I've set up the ISLG Network so it brings together the Chairs of the main industry groups to look at what we can do collaboratively. That’s ISLG itself, the M&EE Networking Group, and the Rail Plant Alliance (RPA). Also, the Rail Industry Contractors Association (RICA), the Rail Industry Supplier Forum (RISF), the remnants of the Track Safety Alliance (TSA), the Rail Wellbeing Alliance (RWA) and others. What that's really done is reduce the number of separate groups that have been set up looking at the same thing. Because we can all talk, come together, and allocate effective resource to particular issues without duplication of effort. It's getting the right people in the same room, talking about the right things, and coming up with solutions.
Are there any areas in rail where you think more collaboration is needed?
We're moving forward with collaboration in our sector. Where we need to get to is collaboration with the other sectors. For instance, with infrastructure contractors, we need to really understand the wants and the needs of the freight community and the passenger operating communities. We do that currently through the System Safety Risk Group (SSRG), which brings together ISLG and our equivalents in other sector areas. But we really need to do more in that space and collaborate further as a complete industry system.
VolkerRail joined the Railway Mental Health Charter in 2021 and won the Charter Award for Best Frontline initiative in 2023. Can you tell us about the work you’re doing in this space?
We realised, for mental health, everything that was out there was designed around people that had access to laptops etc.—the non-operational staff. What we didn't see in the industry was anything self-managing within the operational workforce.
We came up with the Building Relationships on Site (BROS) initiative through Vikky Goodwin, our mental health lead. It's an industry programme for operational, boots-on-ballast staff so they can self-manage that mental health agenda. It’s quite a simple programme, but it’s incredibly effective in providing the skills and equipment to operational staff. They work day in and day out with their colleagues. This initiative helps them recognise subtle changes in those colleagues that may indicate that they are suffering. It’s giving them the tools to instigate a conversation in a sensitive way and to signpost to whatever they need to go forward.
It’s been incredibly successful for us at VolkerRail. Through Vikky, we've also shared BROS with other principal contractors and Network Rail.
Finally, what do you think is rail's greatest underappreciated strength?
The unsung heroes are those who go out in orange every single night and weekends. We can't ever forget that. That's the reason why organisations like ISLG exist—to protect the workforce. It's to protect the people who face a real risk in doing what they do to keep the railways running for the travelling public and businesses that rely on freight.
Take a closer look at VolkerRail’s BROS initiative.
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