Online interactive Risk Assessment

OiRA

Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for Extractive Industries Julia Flintrop

22. February 2013

Why OiRA?

• More than 90% of the companies in the EU have less than 10 employees. What about the Extracive Industry?

• The number of small and medium sized enterprises in the EU is rising.

• Occupational safety and health faces different challenges in small companies, e.g. with regard to knowledge and resources.

• Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have more fatal accidents than big enterprises (Eurostat data, 2008).

• Risk assessment and risk management are not only required by law. Proper risk management is also the most effective way of reducing and eliminating occupational accidents and diseases.

Project Goals

The Community Strategy (2007-2012) requires the “development of simple tools to facilitate risk assessment”. The necessary steps to do so are…•…to develop and promote practical tools to help MSEs to put in place the risk assessment (RA) process;•…to help demystify the RA process among MSEs; and•…to build a critical mass of social partners (EU and national), governments, public institutions interested in developing and disseminating RA tools tailored to the specificities and needs of European MSEs.

László Andor about the new OSH strategy (Juni 2012):• OiRA, the Online Interactive Risk Assessment tool developed by the

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in Bilbao can provide SMEs with an effective and less costly solution to document risk assessment. This is a tool that needs to be further promoted and used to its full potential.

The Dutch Example

The OiRA tool is based on the successful development of the Dutch RI&E (Risk Inventory and Evaluation) instrument:

OiRA Steering Committee

The OiRA project is developed by EU-OSHA, in partnership with itsstakeholders through the OiRA Steering Committee:• EU social partners - ETUC, BusinessEurope, UEAPME• Government representatives• The European Commission• The Dutch government and Dutch social partners• Agency representatives

The mission of the OiRA Steering Committee:• To give strategic and expert advice to the Agency on the

development, implementation and promotion of the OiRA tool

Development strategy at national level

Bottom-up promotion initiative:

• The Agency promotes the tool at national level (through the

FOPs) and puts the OiRA tool generator at the disposal of the

national social partners/ governments/ public institutions

• If governments/ public institutions wish to develop generic or

sectoral tools, social partners should be involved

EU-OSHA OiRA Steering

Committee

National EU-OSHA intermediaries

Micro & small companies

OiRA tools generator

tools1st available tool:

Cyprus hairdressing

Target audience – national stakeholders

Already available in 13

languages

Development strategy at EU-level

Top-down promotion initiative:

• The agency promotes the tool at EU level and puts the OiRA tool generator at the disposal of the EU sectoral social partners (or the Advisory Committee on Health and Safety)

• An “EU tool” is developed (for instance, in English with references to EU legislation)

• Social partners/governments at MS level are invited to adapt the tool (language, legislation) to their national context

EU-OSHA OiRA Steering

Committee

EU-Social dialogue partners

National social partners

OiRA tools generator

General EU tool

Already available in 13

languages

Target Audience – EU Sectoral Social Dialogue

national tools

1. published tool on EU level: leather &

tanning sector

The OiRA philosophy

• Provision of free and open source software

• More than a software, a diffusion model where social partners play a key role

• OiRA tools available to the end-users free of charge

• Development of an OiRA community: Sharing tools (possibility to clone and translate/adapt tools

from other countries/sectors) Sharing of experiences/good practice

Advantages

OiRA offers a host of benefits:

• Online and Interactive (new generation of RA tools)

• Checklists with additional information

• Automatic generation of an action plan with “to do” lists

• Report documenting the RA automatically generated

• User-friendly and easy-to-use

• Adapted to specific sectors (with the look and feel and the lexicon

of the sector)

What does the Agency offer?

To develop OiRA, EU-OSHA offers:

• Free access to the OiRA tools generator

• All the information required to develop an OiRA tool

• Training for the developers of the tool

• Help desk support (for technical matters)

• Membership of the OiRA community (enabling partners to

contribute to/ benefit from the tools and developments made by

other members)

Conditions for use

Project participation requires:

• IT infrastructure - a website of the social partner organisation(s)

• Implementation plan of the tool

• Promotion campaign to raise awareness of the tool

• Acceptance of the OiRA philosophy – singing the memorandum

Development of the tool

Participating EU partners are expected to:

• Sign the Memorandum

• Develop a sectoral tool by using the OiRA tools generator

Allocate the necessary resources

Set up a project team

Develop the content

• Validate the tool (by experts and by testing the tool within

companies)

• Promote and disseminate the tool within the Member States

• Maintain the tool (keep it updated)

EU overview on OiRA involvement

First tools published/about to be published

Tools under development

Interested

Cyprus Belgium Denmark

France Bulgaria Finland

Greece Czech Republic Poland

EU leather & tanning sector Latvia Portugal

Lithuania Romania

Slovenia Slovakia

Spain Sweden

EU live performance sector

EU hairdressing sector

EU cleaning sector

Thank you

For further information visit:

http://www.oiraproject.eu

Or contact:

Julia Flintrop flintrop@osha.europa.euLorenzo Munar munar@osha.europa.eu