STOP šŸ›‘ Car Parking

@Turbo this is the type of reasoned input which is valuable and I offer that @Chief_Tech has some experience in such things. Risk management is reasonably straight forward and a mix of assessment, tolerability, the imperative to conduct an activity, societal concern all of which are at play here. I cannot teach folk on here how to be risk management practitioners but I can inform the constituent elements of the process.

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funny, for years and years we have assessed the car parking risk as ALARP and Tolerable. And by us, I mean the whole of the RAFAC and apparently too the ACF, SCC and the SCOUTS.

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What are the overall risk scores for AEF and Car Parking?

What are the score boundaries for tolerance on your risk management matrix?

Perhaps thereā€™s been some prior confusions when car parking has been described as ā€œnot ALARPā€ when itā€™s actually ALARP but outside of tolerance boundaries?

Likely not relevant. The HQ sample RA for MT only puts driving cadets without mitigation at a 6/25. 2x3. Which is a load of rubbish really. I certainly consider it significantly higher than that. For a start, the impact score must be a 5, as if there is an incident, it can lead to serious life changing injuries or death.

I have seen higher risk scores for classroom work.

Since I saw that RA, and questioned it, and nothing changed, I have seriously questioned the risk processes within HQ.

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I also questioned it.

How can the transport RA (top line) indicate that:

Injuries ranging from minor to fatal

yet the impact is only scoring ā€œ2ā€ = ā€œmoderateā€

a fatality is not a ā€œmoderateā€ impact in my opinion

While my questioning was acknowledged it never produced any clarity

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I understand the concerns, but the scoring does make sense at an organisational level

The impact for that individual person and their family is obviously a 5. The impact for the driver at fault could also be a 4 or 5. But by the time youā€™re at an organisational level, really it would end up being a few press releases and a couple of senior bods staring into a camera saying theyā€™ll do better. Aside from an investigation and probably the suspension of a CFAV, there realistically wouldnā€™t be much impact at all.

However what there does need to be is consistency across the RAs for which level they apply to. If the car parking RA for the org is assessed at a unit level, but flying and driving cadets is at an organisational level, thereā€™s a big problem.

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I would also posit that while the sudden stop to car parking is an annoyance and something that people want over turning, on top of the frustration that other MoD orgs can continue with it, the biggest worry is that this approach will carry over to other activities in the future, reducing what the corps is able to do even further. This came completely out of the blue (to CFAV). How do they know others wonā€™t follow?

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You can still do modellingā€¦
Its just not part of the core sylabus.

But so are many things.

But it is still an insured activity as per ACP 300.

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That should be a risk register then, not a risk assessment. The assessment is for the activity, the register is for risks held by the org

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@Cab

Could you define here please.

Are you specifically refering to ā€˜press-on-itusā€™ the well documented human factor, once the activity is underway.

Or

Are you reffering to our continued disagreement with your decision?

If the firstā€¦ i would entirely agree that RAFAC and indeed MOD as a whole needs to better understand and brief to mititgate and counter the risk of press-on-itus. But this can be done.

If the 2nd. I have yet to understand fully from CoC the documented and fully presented risk profile of this activity.
The risk assessment we used for marshalling of cars covered what we considered and was signed off by WHQ as all the concievable risks.

It still very much feels at this end that a snap decison was made, no impact assessment made, no recovery to activity assessment made and worse, despite all asks for this to be reexamined in clear light of day, heels dug in with ā€˜noā€™ being the only response.

Saftey is obviously our No1 priority. End.

However we can achieve that end state for moat acitivites with sufficent measures in place.

Let us, help you, illustrate and trial said measures.

I mean based on evidence (no recorded incidents in what, 40+ years?), the likelihood seems to be 1-2, even if the impact was a 5 thatā€™s still only a 5-10 on risk.

Assuming ā€œremoteā€ likelihood (overall risk score of 5), the guidance in the Form 5010(c) is to ā€œMaintain control measures and review regularly or if there are any changes that may impact either Likelihood or Impact.ā€

Assuming ā€œunlikelyā€ likelihood (overall risk score of 10), the guidance is instead ā€œReview control measures and improve if reasonably practicable to do so, consider alternative ways of conducting the activity. Consider informing command chains of activity elements that impact either Likelihood or Impact.ā€

@Cab Has anything changed recently that impacts Likelihood or Impact? Could control measures not be reviewed? Do you use an entirely different risk management system as we do? If not, why is there a different judgement?

Whilst cadets and staff can mitigate everything in their AOR, there also remain the ā€˜known, unknownā€™, the driver of the vehicle that is being marshalled.

Iā€™m sure weā€™ve all seen drivers at events, who see a space and will fill it with their vehicle, no matter how many times they are told no.

What happens in the case of a cadet gets in the way of the driver when the red mist has descended and he is going to park :man_shrugging:t2:

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There has never been a case of ā€˜cadet gets in the way of the driver when the red mist has descended and he is going to parkā€™, because any CFAV with an once of sense will brief the cadets beforehand to never, never, ever place yourself in front of a moving vehicle, even if the vehicle is going somewhere it shouldnā€™t.

But of course we canā€™t be trusted to use that once of common sense anymore!

I have seen exactly this on three separate occasions. It can happen. It has happened. It could happen without positive action. If you look back at this thread, it appears others have seen ā€˜near missesā€™ which raises a question of effective reporting. All far from ideal folks.

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Maybe if you had said this earlier, that might have defused some of the quite passionate posts we have had? If you had, said this and I missed it, I appologise. For my part, in the many car marshalling events I have neither seen this nor had it reported to me. I have certainly had to deal with some utter door-knobs at the wheel.

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Talking of ā€˜near missesā€™, here is a graphic of the airborne near misses around one AEF location, picked at random.

I still donā€™t understand how one activity is tolerable and the other is not?

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Will you please stop highlighting aviation incidents. We get little enough as it is, donā€™t give a reason to reduce it further!

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Not sure what your upload shows? Is this showing AEF sorties with a cadet on board and over what time scale?

It only goes to highlight that a positive reporting culture exists in aviation. To benefit from a safety management system those involved must have an engaging attitude, otherwise thereā€™s no evidence available to manage the risk.

I canā€™t believe there havenā€™t been any near misses whilst air cadets/ CFAV have been performing car parking duties over the years. Why is this? If the near misses had been reported then we might not be where we are now. The car parking issue is a failure of not engaging in the prevailing safety culture.

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The last car parking event I did, was on an RAF station within the last 2 years.

It was raining, and having shown forethought and brought waterproofs I was sent to releive the staff on the car parking task.

On arrival I was told the layout we were targeting and left to it.

Iā€™ve no idea what was in the RA, if there was an RA and nothing to brief onto the cadets who arrived on their rotation.

In reflection, all in all not great and not what I would call an acceptable & practical risk level.

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Donā€™t get me wrong, I love aviation, love taking cadets flying, work in aviation (CAA Form 4 holder), hold a CAA pilots licence, and do everything I can to promote aviation. I want cadet flying to continue, (but in a much greater number obviously).

Iā€™m just trying to highlight the hypocrisy in the decision making. Standing in a field in hi-viz pointing your arms is less risky than flying. One gets banned, the other doesnā€™t, (thankfully).

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