The Safety Case at 40: Can a groundbreaking idea remain groundbreaking for 40 years?

"The Safety Case at 40" looks back at the journey since Piper Alpha, the improvements achieved and the evidence of changing industry safety performance. But its main focus is on the future.

Nearly four decades ago, the offshore Safety Case represented a groundbreaking change in how the industry thought about safety, moving away from prescriptive compliance towards a goal-setting approach in which those creating and managing risk were responsible for demonstrating how it would be controlled.

Today's offshore industry is very different. Assets are ageing, operating models are evolving, and digitalisation, advanced analytics and AI are creating capabilities that were science-fiction when the regime was developed.

So, as the Safety Case approaches four decades at the heart of offshore safety, this presentation asks a deliberately challenging question: is yesterday's groundbreaking solution still fit for tomorrow's industry? The presentation will explore what we can learn from other industries and regulatory regimes to imagine the next generation of offshore safety regulation and assurance."

Biography: 

Graham Skinner is Health, Safety and Security Manager at Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), bringing together industry, regulators and workforce representatives to strengthen safety leadership across offshore energy. He helps shape UK policy through engagement with government, regulators and parliamentary committees, translating operational experience into practical guidance and industry-wide improvement.

His work spans major accident prevention, occupational health, aviation safety, security and resilience. He supports OEUK’s global reach through its offshore medical programme and international sharing of guidance, alongside cross-sector collaboration through the Process Safety Forum. A Chartered Engineer, Graham combines international drilling experience with a decade as a Specialist Inspector at the UK Health and Safety Executive.