Network Rail has agreed to an independent review of how it reports staff accidents following intervention by Unite, Britain's biggest union.

Bob Rixham, Unite's National Officer for railways, exposed the under-reporting of minor accidents amongst workers. The company's chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, is now inviting the Railway Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to review the reporting system for so-called "riddor" incidents. Unite health and safety officers will join the RSSB team on the safety culture review.

Riddor stands for 'reporting of iinjuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences regulations' which were established by the Health and Safety Executive in 1995. The RSSB is an independent rail industry body dedicated to improving health and safety on the UK's railways. Riddor states all injuries to workers from an accident connected with work that result in them being "unable to do their full range of normal duties for more than three days" must be reported.

-- Advertisement --

Last year seven directors earned £2.36 million in bonuses. Network Rail's safety record is taken into consideration when the remuneration committee awards bonuses. According to Network Rail's annual report 2009/10: "Safety is one of the key discretionary items for assessment for the (remuneration) committee when it comes to consideration of payments under the incentive plan."

Network Rail had also put in place management league tables where managers would have points deducted for riddor incidents. Unite believes the league tables acted as an incentive for managers to under-report accidents. Network Rail has now agreed to end the use of the league tables but is refusing to re-open the issue of bonuses paid to directors.

Unite's National Officer Bob Rixham said: "Network Rail's chairman is to be congratulated. This is a positive step forward. The operator's credibility has been severely undermined by the under-reporting of accidents. Behind the statistics are real people who have been injured at work. Network Rail now has the opportunity to instigate change to a safer railway for rail workers and in doing so restore its credibility.

"It's still outrageous that senior directors can walk away with huge bonuses when Network Rail wrongly boosted its safety record. Network Rail's chairman must ensure that part of the bonuses paid to directors are recouped and donated to the transport benevolent fund."

New data shown by Bob Rixham to Rick Haythornthwaite in the past fortnight indicated that around 700 riddor incidents are not reported by contractors every year on top of the under-reporting by Network Rail managers.

(CD/GK)