Client Engagement Workshop Guidance

Best practice considerations for remote collection and delivery activities.

Contents
Background and rationale Incident prevention and claims defensibility Best practice vision How do you prioritise your Risk Management effort and resource? A documented Risk Assessment for every individual collection/delivery location? Risk assessment findings are communicated to those affected? Changes in risk are communicated? Personnel are trained in Safe Working practices? Safe working practices are adhered to? Incident information is captured and the event investigated? Claims Defensibility mechanisms are adequate? 1 1 2

4 4 4 6 6 7

Conclusion 8 About the Author 8

Disclaimer 8

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Background and rationale

Activities undertaken remotely to an organisations premises can be challenging to manage and when things go wrong, personal injury or damage claims can be difficult to defend.
In recognition of that challenge, QBEs latest Client Engagement Workshop provided an opportunity for cross-discipline experts within the collection and delivery industry to share their views, ideas and best practice. In addition to QBEs Underwriting and Risk Management experts, the event was supported by David Evans and Matthew Harrington of panel solicitors, Berrymans Lace Mawer, who offered invaluable legal insight to the various issues as they arose, together with case studies which typified the challenges faced. With the emphasis on sharing of ideas and promoting pragmatic solutions to real problems, risk management leaders from some of the UKs most forward-thinking companies who routinely undertake kerbside collection and delivery activities, came together for this 3 hour workshop; the outputs from which are summarised below.

Incident prevention and claims defensibility

This summary feedback document sets out an 8-point best practice guidance on what organisations need to do to both: Manage those activities practically so as to prevent incidents arising, and Be in the best position possible to effectively defend or mitigate associated claims. This is a wide subject due to the varied nature of those activities, not least of all the different types of collection/delivery, the various types of plant, equipment or vehicles being used and arrangements for their maintenance, the individual locations, and the diverse nature of the physical tasks actually undertaken from commercial refuse collection through to kitchen table delivery in a private dwelling. In addition to that dynamic, many such organisations rely on temporary and agency personnel, who may well be employed by the company for a relatively very short period; sometimes a single day, making the task of evidencing good safety management a testing experience. With that in mind, this guidance considers the key management issues as opposed to considering every permutation of delivery or collection in detail. Equally, we have only focussed on the kerbside point of work itself and havent attempted to debate upstream systemic issues such as vehicle or equipment suitability, best loading methodologies, employee recruitment practices, efficacy of training, job and knock cultures, single driver vs team dynamics, etc. although it may well be that organisations do indeed need to address those points if they are to avoid their negative knock-on impacts further downstream as discussed here.

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Best practice vision

Below, we set out the key challenges that collection/delivery organisations routinely face, the associated target status to be achieved and specific suggestions on how organisations might meet those objectives.

1. How do you prioritise your Risk Management effort and resource? Objective: Organisations should have a systematic mechanism for identifying their priority action areas for managing foreseeable risk faced by collection/delivery personnel.
Effort and resource should always be targeted at those areas of highest actual or potential impact upon the business, which might be achieved via a Risk Register approach. From a collection/ delivery perspective, this should include consideration of risks or potential changes that have an impact on the organisations profitability. Employers should first establish and then review their leading and lagging performance indicators to identify where the most beneficial and cost-effective interventions can be made. So far as kerbside activity is concerned, priority consideration should be given to those elements with the potential for a higher frequency or financial consequence of: Accidents, incidents, near misses, poor working practices, etc Personal injury claims, via analysis of frequency, costs and commonly occurring features Claims defensibility performance Similarly, for motor fleet or property damage claims own and 3rd parties Work-related absence or illness Product or carrier damage Customer complaints Delivery window failures Other behavioural indicators such as vehicle maintenance costs, adverse fuel consumption, excessive brake and tyre wear, Road Traffic Act violations, prosecutions, tachograph infringements, etc. A systematic evaluation of the above and other relevant key performance indicators will support the business case for intervention and will provide direction on what to prioritise.

2. A documented Risk Assessment for every individual collection/delivery location? Objective: For every collection/delivery task, a documented risk assessment should exist which is representative of the foreseeable range of activities to be undertaken, the methodologies adopted, the equipment used and the environment in which those tasks are carried out.
If generic risk assessments satisfy the above objective, then individual, location-specific assessments are not required. Where the risks vary to such an extent from site to site that the generic assessment cannot always be fully representative, the employer has a choice of either: Undertaking location-specific risk assessments (LSRAs) for every collection/delivery location and/or Supplementing those or the generic assessments with point-of-work risk assessments; Kerbside Risk Assessments (KRAs).

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The choice will be very much dependent upon individual employers specific collection/delivery circumstances and business model. For some, assessing every individual customer location will be viable, whereas for others, it would not be reasonably practicable, in which case, some form of generic/location-specific/KRA combination will be appropriate. Where feasible, assessments should be undertaken before the 1st delivery/collection is made and should form part of the new contract pre-operational activity e.g., a new customer or new route risk assessment. Customers responsibilities for safety of the collection/delivery personnel should also be clarified within the collection/delivery contract, e.g. by specifying physical expectations at the point of collection/delivery, minimum standards, flagging up adverse features such as steps, specifying individual equipment requirements etc.

Irrespective of risk assessment type, whoever undertakes it needs to be competent to do so insofar as being able to properly assess the risks which collection/delivery personnel face. It also follows that, if supplementary KRAs are being relied upon to meet the objective, then the collection/delivery personnel need to be able to recognise typical situations where it should be applied. They will also need appropriate training, coaching, supervision and the means with which to both undertake an objective assessment and to subsequently record their findings. Where defects and deficiencies are identified, a systematic mechanism should exist for reporting, escalating (via senior management if necessary) and correcting these, including, where applicable, defects at customers properties. Any corrective activity should be fully documented and records retained. To further complicate matters, collection/delivery activities are particularly affected by variable weather conditions, not least of all winter working, and that dynamic needs to be addressed specifically in the risk assessment process.

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3. R isk assessment findings are communicated to those affected? Objective: Employees undertaking collection/ delivery activities should be furnished with information and/or training about the hazards they face, and the subsequent safe methodologies to be adopted.
Risk assessments should be documented, saved, date-stamped and subject to version control. Where generic or location-specific risk assessments are appropriate, communicating their findings should form part of the task-specific induction and route familiarisation training provided to those personnel to which they apply. Where supplementary KRAs are created, the person undertaking the assessment must record those findings and communicate these to other colleagues at that visit, i.e., co-workers, deliverymates, collection team members, etc. Evidence of receipt of this information should be obtained, e.g. by signed receipt of induction training, countersigning of a KRA document, signing attendance to a kerbside toolbox talk, selecting the accept function on a PDA device, etc. A copy of the KRA together with evidence of its communication (by whatever means) should be held in a central repository and archived for future reference e.g. in the event of a claim.

Employers therefore need a mechanism to capture these changes, ratify that the changes are likely to be repeated at subsequent visits and then systematically communicate that change to other collection/delivery personnel affected, so that they too can act appropriately. How that is done in practical terms will be a direct function of the sophistication of the employers information processes and systems. The use of a call centre to phone in and report any issues, driver debriefs and pre-shift briefings, SMS texts, email, paper delivery advice notes, electronic messaging to vehicle-based PDA-type devices, etc, are all relevant for consideration, depending on what best suits the employers specific situation and existing technologies. Once a change has been effected, older versions of the risk assessment and any related safety information, together with any evidence of receipt of information or instructions, should be chronologically archived for future reference.

5. Personnel are trained in Safe Working practices? Objective: Evidence of employee competence is required for all routine activities undertaken, together with foreseeable non-routine situations likely to be encountered during collection/ delivery.
Documented Safe Systems of Work (SSOW) should be created setting out how employees will undertake routine tasks in a safe manner. The SSOW should reflect the findings of the relevant Risk Assessments and prescribe specific instructions for any elements of the collection/delivery task that warrant attention. Additional instructions should also be created for foreseeable non-standard situations which also describe the appropriate response to that scenario. Golden Rules should be established which stipulate a prescribed response to specific situations including the catch-all requirement to stop and refer upwards if unsure. Employees should be trained on how to perform each of those various task elements correctly and safely.

4. Changes in risk are communicated? Objective: Where local conditions are encountered which present a material change in the risk, that change needs to be communicated to those affected, including different personnel undertaking the next visit.
A mechanism is required which enables material changes in risk to be identified such that an updated assessment can be carried out. The use of KRAs is an ideal tool for this, albeit care has to be taken to ensure that any changes are not only captured and communicated at the point of work for the benefit of those immediately affected, but also communicated to all personnel who will be subsequently affected by that change.

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and training provided. They can be equally beneficial for making the process of delivering periodic refresher training easier. Some organisations elect to video record their employees undertaking the tasks once their training is completed, again as evidence of individual competence, but in any case, a formal acknowledgement of receipt by the employee should always be obtained. Inadequate training is a frequently stated allegation in many personal injury claims, so employers need to ensure they have a recording system which: Identifies who requires training, who has received training and when refresher training is due Escalates that requirement to the person responsible for ensuring its delivery or completion Articulates precisely what the training is and what has been delivered Evidences the consequential competence of the individual to perform that task Archives the above information in a manner which ensures it can be readily retrieved (within no more than 5 business days) should it be required and Is retained for a suitable period of time after the individual has left the company. The period is a judgement call but should not be less than 5 years, or longer if the tasks undertaken have longer-term disease potential e.g. manual tasks which may give rise to musculoskeletal disorders. The use of newsletters, Toolbox Talks, driver briefings, etc, are all relevant media here too and, so far as is practical, employers should formalise their delivery and record its receipt. Training obviously takes many forms, from the formal systems alluded to above through to simple on-the-job explanations of how to do a minor task. It follows that not everything will always be captured or documented, but where employers can evidence that training or instruction has been delivered, this will pay dividends should allegations to the contrary be made.

Employees should be empowered to abort the collection/delivery if they are in anyway uncertain how to perform the task in a safe manner. The training should be a mixture of both theoretical and practical instruction - as is most appropriate for the specific task in hand and the risks it presents. The trainees competence to perform the task correctly and safely should be validated by a competent assessor, based upon a physical demonstration by the trainee that they can perform the tasks competently as per their training. The use of new media techniques, such as the videoing of tasks and indeed using that to support practical on-the-job instruction, is an extremely useful mechanism, both for ensuring consistency and also for evidencing precisely the content of any instruction

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6. Safe working practices are adhered to? Objective: Employers should adopt a mechanism for systematically checking the efficacy of their safety management systems at the point of work.
Employers need to satisfy themselves that the systems of work they devise are routinely adopted and applied at the point of work, implying the need for a systematic inspection and auditing regime to validate this. The scope and complexity of that regime will be determined by the nature and scale of the tasks involved as well as the sophistication of the existing facilities the employer has at their disposal. For example, telematics on vehicles not only provides useful MI on individuals behaviours whilst driving, but also offers insight to their wider safety attitudes and behaviours. The regime should cover a representative sample of collection/ delivery activities, which accurately reflect the range and nature of risks employees face, with a frequency of audit/inspection to match, and should ideally comprise a combination of both planned and unannounced visits. Higher risk cohort groups may also be identified from risk profiling of the tasks being undertaken and from observance of lagging performance indicators alluded to above. Tasks considered to be relatively higher risk may not automatically attract a greater focus. The lagging indicators described may well reflect the actual safety performance of the individuals, tasks or locations concerned and this in itself may provide some steer with the decision-making process as to what warrants more attention.

7. I ncident information is captured and the event investigated? Objective: Following any incident, relevant factual information is captured, an investigation is undertaken which determines the cause(s) and relevant corrective actions are implemented to prevent a repetition.
Adverse events such as accidents and incidents are an opportunity to learn and improve. Collection/delivery organisations therefore need a suitable mechanism to ensure the prompt reporting of incidents back to the business, such that opportunity to capture the facts and learn lessons is not lost.

The reporting process should be defined and communicated to employees, stipulating that incidents should be reported as soon as practicable and in any case, on the shift the incident took place. Failure to do so should be a breach of company safety policy and dealt with accordingly. An escalation management process is required which enables the organisation to react and respond appropriately to the incidents significance. All personal injury incidents should be thoroughly investigated, with those carrying out the investigation trained in how to do this effectively.

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Incident details should be recorded, but only factual information permitted. Opinion and speculation should be avoided but where this is encountered, it should be attributed to the individual reporting it, then thoroughly investigated to confirm or refute its accuracy. Failure to do so will render the employer unnecessarily exposed to potentially damaging allegations which cannot later be disproven. Witness statements, photos, digital/video recording, in-vehicle or location CCTV footage, tacho information, telematics management information, etc are all relevant media that should be considered to ensure they support the reported version of events. Any discrepancies should be investigated, challenged and corrected as necessary. Where potential witnesses report not actually seeing the incident or having any relevant information to contribute, record that fact too. Completed investigations should always be reviewed by a senior level manager to ensure that conclusions and recommendations reflect facts, and are appropriate. It would be prudent to liaise with the insurance department on any incident felt likely to lead to a claim. The purpose of the investigation is to capture facts, not to attribute blame. Equally, the facts should not be skewed or glossed over simply to avoid implied blame. Where change is required, this should be implemented in a timely manner following due process. However, change for changes sake should be avoided if the organisations existing systems are felt to be satisfactory. Equally, where an employee has not followed the system of work or their training, this fact should be recorded including any action taken as a result of that transgression.

Where there are gaps in that evidence, the employer will struggle to convince the court that a scenario existed which is contrary to that described by the claimant, so evidential documentation is an unavoidable feature of effective claims management. Some organisations articulate claims defensibility as a percentage of claims settled at 0 damages compared with number of claims made. This is a short-sighted view and can create perverse results which doesnt necessarily help the employer improve its overall liability performance nor positively impact upon its premiums. QBEs preference for articulating success is one of prevention, reduction and mitigation, evidenced by a downward trend in the number and severity of injuries being sustained, supported by a robust investigation system which ensures that all relevant facts are captured contemporaneously, all of which facilitates the correct decision on liability to be reached at the earliest opportunity. Such an approach will offer the best formula for ultimately reducing both the number and severity of claims being made, ensuring a bias of only genuine claims being pursued, and therefore minimising incurred legal costs by accurately selecting the right cases to settle as well as the right ones to defend.

8. Claims Defensibility mechanisms are adequate? Objective: Always make the correct decision on liability in a timely manner such that meritorious claims can be settled on best economic terms and non-meritorious claims can be defended robustly.
Claims may be an emotive issue for management, but they are dealt with on a factual basis by the courts, being based on the objective merit of the evidence presented to the judge.

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Conclusion
The challenge of effectively managing remote, kerbside collection and delivery activity, such that incidents and the impact of resulting claims are minimised, should not be underestimated. However, enlightened organisations who have been successful in meeting the objectives set out in the 8 points above experience fewer incidents, benefit from a more positive claims profile, and consequently present as a far more attractive prospect to the insurance market in general.
Philip Bladon Senior Risk Manager Risk Management Services

Disclaimer
This publication has been produced by QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd (QIEL). QIEL is a company member of the QBE Insurance Group. Readership of this publication does not create an insurer-client, or other business or legal relationship. This publication provides information about the law to help you to understand and manage risk within your organisation. Legal information is not the same as legal advice. This publication does not purport to provide a definitive statement of the law and is not intended to replace, nor may it be relied upon as a substitute for, specific legal or other professional advice. QIEL has acted in good faith to provide an accurate publication. However, QIEL and the QBE Group do not make any warranties or representations of any kind about the contents of this publication, the accuracy or timeliness of its contents, or the information or explanations given. QIEL and the QBE Group do not have any duty to you, whether in contract, tort, under statute or otherwise with respect to or in connection with this publication or the information contained within it. QIEL and the QBE Group have no obligation to update this report or any information contained within it. To the fullest extent permitted by law, QIEL and the QBE Group disclaim any responsibility or liability for any loss or damage suffered or cost incurred by you or by any other person arising out of or in connection with you or any other persons reliance on this publication or on the information contained within it and for any omissions or inaccuracies. QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited and QBE Underwriting Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. QBE Management Services (UK) Limited and QBE Underwriting Services (UK) Limited are both Appointed Representatives of QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited and QBE Underwriting Limited.

About the Author

Phil joined QBE in 2003 and has over 16 years of practical and managerial experience in the mining and the metals industries together with 17 years in the insurance sector, where hes specialised in liability risk management, practising primarily in high-hazard industries. He now focusses on QBEs major client portfolio, supporting clients efforts in reducing incidents and the costs associated with resulting claims, and specialising in claims defensibility mechanisms. Phil is a European Engineer, Chartered Mining Engineer, Chartered Member of IOSH and a Chartered Safety Practitioner.

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QBE ClientEngagementWorkshopGuidance/December 2012 QBE European Operations is a trading name of QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited and QBE Underwriting Limited. QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited and QBE Underwriting Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. QBE Management Services (UK) Limited and QBE Underwriting Services (UK) Limited are both Appointed Representatives of QBE Insurance (Europe) Limited and QBE Underwriting Limited.