ABSTRACT
The UK Health and Safety Executive in their guide to measuring safety performance takes a risk-control approach in categorising performance indicators. Generally, people use safety performance indicators to express an organisation's ability to control the risk of accidents in its activities. Leading safety performance indicators predict future developments in safety performance, that is, they change before the safety performance has changed. Lagging safety performance indicators change after an activity's safety performance has changed. In a guide for authorities and communities on safety performance indicators for chemical accidents, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) makes the distinction between outcome (lagging) and activities (leading) indicators. Activities indicators measure, on a regular and systematic basis, whether an organisation implements its priority actions as intended. The Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) points to the necessity of complementary use of leading and lagging indicators rather than basing the management of health, safety, and environment (HSE) on leading or lagging indicators only.
