Safety is of paramount importance for us. The Board reviews performance on a monthly basis, and we look to continually improve our performance to help us reach our goal.
A safe workforce
We have clarified our definition of employee lost time injuries in order to align our approach to recording employee acute lost time injuries, chronic injuries and occupational ill health cases in the UK and the US. As a consequence, we are restating down the total employee lost time injuries for 2006/07 from 142 to 97 and the corresponding employee lost time injury frequency rate from 0.34 to 0.24.
During 2007/08, 88 of our employees received injuries that resulted in them taking time off work, compared with 97 in 2006/07 and 117 (number not restated) in 2005/06.
If the US lost time injuries are recorded under US Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) definition, as in previous years, the total number of lost time injuries in 2007/08 is 140, compared with 142 and 117 in the previous two years.
Since joining National Grid in August 2007, 42 lost time injuries have been sustained by our employees acquired with KeySpan.
Employee lost time injuries track our progress towards our target of zero work-related injuries. However, our employee lost time injury frequency rate provides a more accurate indicator of year-on-year performance as it takes into account changing employee numbers resulting from acquisitions and disposals. Employee lost time injuries per 100,000 hours worked was 0.24 in 2007/08 compared with 0.24 and 0.28 (number not restated) in the two previous years.
If the US lost time injury frequency rate is recorded using the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) definition for lost time injuries, the rate is 0.38 compared with 0.34 and 0.28 in 2006/07 and 2005/06 respectively
In our 2008 employee engagement survey, 71% of respondents felt confident that safety concerns or issues raised would be addressed, compared with 79% in the 2006 survey. In 2008, 73% of respondents also considered that National Grid never compromises safety in order to meet other goals (2006: not measured).
2.46% of available work days were lost due to sickness absence in 2007/08 compared with 2.48% in 2006/07.