ABSTRACT
The problems which arise from a poor safety culture are invidious and all-pervasive; they will undermine all provisions in place to promote safety and damage the effectiveness of any new initiatives. It is hardly surprising therefore that few, if any, safety specialists would question the importance of a positive and sustainable safety culture. The Safety Management System must include an organisation, an infrastructure, within the operation which provides the mechanism whereby the requirements of the system can be/are delivered. While the concept of safety advisors was developed, in large part, to reinforce the fact that it is operational management who must own the safety problem rather than the safety manager, the transition from safety manager to safety advisor may well have been a step too far and one which may be seen, in many senses, to have been counter-productive. Improving safety culture is about changing human behaviour but our behaviour is dynamic and context dependent.
