HOW ARE WE USING THE RESULTS OF OUR RESEARCH?

The reasons for commissioning research fall broadly into two categories: to inform policy or to improve the effectiveness of our operations.

Looking at a few projects completed since our last review in April 2007, here are some examples of how they have been followed up.

RP 521 - Leading for Safety (Driving safety Culture: Identification of Leadership Qualities for Effective Safety Management)

It was recommended that MCA should encourage industry to formally consider previously demonstrated leadership and people management skills when promoting into senior leadership positions at sea and ashore.

Over 15,000 copies of the Leading for Safety (L4S) booklet have now been requested from international shipping companies and from diverse worldwide organisations from fish farms in Peru to oil companies in Kazakhstan. It forms part of an Oil major's senior officer training course and we understand is used by numerous training consultancies and in military, oil drilling and transportation industries.

Following marine industry feedback, MGN 351(M) was produced to explain where copies of the booklet can be obtained and the L4S booklet has kindly been translated into Chinese (by industry) and Japanese & Spanish versions are in progress.

RP 549 Development of a protocol for the treatment and disposal of oily waste

The final report has been issued through the Emergency Planning Society Oil Pollution Group to all coastal local authorities. It is expected that most authorities will incorporate the key technical areas into their response plans. The environmental regulators together with MCA now have sound guidance to refer to during shoreline clean-up operations as part of incident response.

RP 552 Assessment Of The Impact Of The New Probabilistic Damage Stability Regulations (Solas 2009) On The Subdivision Of New Ships

After the results of the project were analysed concerns emerged about the possibility that the new SOLAS2009 regulations may fail to provide an equivalent level of safety to SOLAS90, in particular for Ro-Pax ships which, until 2009, will continue to apply the Stockholm Agreement to allow for water on the vehicle deck but thereafter will have this aspect of their safety level governed exclusively by the new regulations.

As a result COSS/EMSA has been fully alerted by the MCA to the possible weaknesses of the SOLAS2009 regulations vis-à-vis Ro-Ro passenger ships and water on deck. It was recently announced that , subject to approval by the EU council and parliament, the EU will shortly be issuing instructions that new European ferries building after 1/1/2009 must additionally be analysed against the Stockholm Agreement until such time as it is either confirmed that S2009 is allowing correctly for the water-on-deck problem or it is revised as necessary. In the meantime, the EU submitted a paper to MSC (Ref. MSC 84/22/12) requesting that the issue be re-opened for examination by the IMO SLF sub-committee under a new urgent agenda item. This paper was accepted at MSC in May 2008 and will be discussed at SLF 51 in July 2008.

In the meantime MCA is carrying out more detailed investigations into the technical problems of water on deck/SOLAS2009 under RP 592 (Outline designs for New Ro Ro Passenger Ferries Compliant with SOLAS 2009) with a view to contributing to the forthcoming debate at IMO SLF.

RP 571 Intact Stability Severe Wind and Rolling Criteria - an Equivalent Standard

The recommendations comprise a set of adjustments, ie. modified parameters for input to the method of A.562. These modified parameters are considered to extend the range of ship types for which it provides results of acceptable accuracy. The European Commission has accepted the modifications to the severe wind and rolling criterion A.562 (14), which MCA will use on ships of domestic classes II(A) to VI(A) which cannot otherwise satisfy that criterion.

RP 572 - Intact Stability Equivalent Criteria for Small Domestic Passenger Ships

The research did not call for any immediate change of policy on intact stability, but rather will inform future policy decisions. A submission to SLF 51 (meeting 14^th July) is under preparation.

Both RP 571 and 572 are going to SLF 51.  It is expected they will be of significant interest to the SLF stability experts. Using the research MCA were given a variation (on stability) of EU directive 98/18 agreed with the commission. An MGN to publish this is currently under consultation.

RP 586 Research to determine the Regulatory Approaches to Recreational Vessels within the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

It was recommended that MCA should investigate whether the UK does have a problem in its recreational sector, which will enable a conclusion to be made about which control option best suits the UK. Research proposal RP 601 (The UK Maritime Sport, Leisure and Recreational Sector – Are we playing safe?), which was rejected by Committee at the last meeting is currently being considered by Peter Cardy.

Various examples of best practice in other countries were highlighted. The ‘standout’ example was the mandatory carriage / wearing of life jackets which was effective in many countries. A national campaign is underway to promote the usage of life jackets and supported by many of the sector’s stakeholders.

It was acknowledged that compiling a strong evidence base is essential to deciding what regulatory regime might work in the UK. MCA should continue to strengthen its evidence base to support the decision making process.

Research and Planning will continue to compile a strong evidence base; RP 608 is continuing the population surveys for sport and leisure sector. The Incident Information Model (IIM) is now being used more widely by the MRCCs to collect better incident data and new methods are being piloted to collect behavioural change indicators. Panel reviews are ensuring effective data exchange and analysis and promoting improved Safety Risk Management.

RP 591- Environmental Risk Criteria

FSA was implemented in the IMO in 2002. While it operates satisfactorily from a process point of view it needed continuous improvement to be applied, and the UK and others did this in 2003-2006. Having developed a revised consolidated version in 2007, the UK raised the issue that the FSA model accommodates harm to people, but not the 2 other outcomes of maritime incidents, economic loss and environmental damage. Economic loss will be captured once loss data is available from the maritime insurance industry which is work in progress. The environmental harms are more complex and more difficult to quantify. The IMO set up a correspondence group to tackle this and the MCA contributed and also let a research contract, RP591, to provide further evidence for its input.

The result is that we have sold the case to IMO that a single monolithic approach to oil pollution in the FSA model is not the answer, that many other aspects of environmental harm need to be included, and that there is a range of criteria which can be used as starting points within any FSA study. This has all been agreed at MEPC and the result is that the CG is being extended to determine how these (UK originated) criteria can be incorporated into the IMO FSA model.