A safety management system is not a volume of method statements; it is not a series of meetings by a safety group, nor the regular reporting on safety to a board of directors. It is far more than these. Today's society, through legislation, places the safety of a company's employees and others affected by a company's activities as paramount in importance amongst a company's objectives. In the drive to succeed in business, safety considerations can often be pushed aside if robust management is not continuously applied to every aspect of a company's processes. Such safety management will embody:

• Analysis of work processes for the hazards involved
• Risk assessment for those hazards
• The putting in place of control measures to eliminate or reduce the risks
• Continuous monitoring of the work processes to see if the control measures are effective, or can be improved
• The feeding back of monitoring data to bring about improvements in processes
• The regular auditing of all the above
• The correcting and strengthening of all the above in accordance with the findings of the latest audit.
• Shown diagrammatically, safety management systems appear as loops, following paths aimed at continuous improvement. This is a key requirement

So, with its effectiveness dependant on a continuous process, the safety management system must have the continuous involvement of senior management. Add to this the requirement for competence. Competence is a requirement throughout all levels of a safe business operation, from the operatives at the sharp end, to senior management making the decisions that affect those operatives' safety. But it cannot be expected that company directors and senior managers will be experts on all aspects of safety management. Therefore, the law, in the form of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires that all employers appoint adequate numbers of competent persons to assist in complying with their obligations under all the health and safety legislation.Abbey can assist employers by:

• Analyzing a company's work processes
• Assisting in the writing of risk assessments
• Training staff at all levels to adopt a safety culture
• Monitoring and auditing systems and reporting back to the Board