SMS Risk Champions’ Training

Gates Aviation’s Jo Gillespie recently delivered a tailored training package for a UK air operator, aimed at creating a group of middle management ‘risk champions’ spread throughout the organisation. These risk champions are to be the embedded departmental safety specialists, providing subject matter expertise to the Safety & Compliance department for risk management, change management and safety investigations. They will also be the local source of safety knowledge for departmental processes like the Safety Action Groups and project risk assessments. The two-day course, which was written specifically for this client, covered the fundamentals of safety management, common safety taxonomy, a refresher of SMS principles and the practical application of the airline’s own safety and risk management procedures. Attendee feedback was very positive and the next step will be a workshop with the airline’s directors and post-holders to hone and focus their safety objectives, performance indicators and targets to meet the requirements of the CAA’s performance based oversight strategy.