Audit and Self Assessment
Twelve HSEC audits were conducted during the reporting period to assess the level of implementation of the HSEC Management Standards. Four of these were to complete the first three-year cycle, and eight were to revisit sites that had scored less than 3.5 (out of 5) in the first round of audits and had shown only marginal improvement in self assessments conducted since the audits. The program involved 60 personnel from both HSEC functional roles and operational roles and four external auditors, including an independent member of the HSE Committee of the Board. This brings to 91 the number of site audits conducted since the program commenced in September 2001, with 248 BHP Billiton and 20 external auditors involved.
As in previous years, operating sites not audited during the year were required to undertake self assessments against the Standards. The results from these 66 self assessments have been combined with the audit results to give the range and average level of conformance for each of the Standards shown in the diagram below. This shows an overall conformance of 3.9 out of 5 (compared to 3.7 out of 5 for the last reporting period) against our target of full conformance (a score of greater than 4 out of 5) with the Standards by 30 June 2005.
The audit and self assessment process is assisting sites to accelerate the rate of implementation of the HSEC Management Standards through identifying and communicating leading practices. With the revision of the HSEC Standards this year, the Audit and Self Assessment protocols are also being revised; and learnings from the first triennial audit cycle are being taken into account in the process. The next cycle of audits to be conducted against the revised HSEC Standards will commence in October 2005.
Audit and Self Assessment Conformance Scores against each of the HSEC Management Standards 2001/02 to 2004/05
In 2004, the Minerals Council of Australia rolled out 'Enduring Value – The Australian Minerals Industry Framework for Sustainable Development', designed to underpin the ICMM Sustainable Development Framework and replace, in time, the former Code for Environmental Management, which we have reported against in previous years. To assist in the transition to Enduring Value, the Board of the Minerals Council of Australia no longer requires reporting of conformance against the Code and instead has replaced it with a series of indicators drawn from the Global Reporting Initiative. Refer to our GRI Navigator to see how these have been addressed.
