Introducing Risk! Engineers Talk Governance

In this special introduction episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, meet your hosts Gaye Francis and Richard Robinson who outline their due diligence engineering experience and why they are starting the podcast .

You can find out more about Richard & Gaye's due diligence and SFAIRP work at www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye is also founder & managing director of Apto PPE Women's & Maternity Hi Vis Workwear. For more head to www.aptoppe.com.au

Transcript

Gaye Francis (00:00):

Good morning and welcome to our podcast Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. I'm Gaye Francis and Richard Robinson's here and is my business partner.

(00:09):

How you going this morning, Richard?

Richard Robinson (00:10):

I'm particularly well Gaye, although it is a bit chilly.

Gaye Francis (00:12):

It is a bit chilly here in Melbourne. Winter has definitely arrived.

(00:18):

So this first podcast is really an introduction to what we're going to do. We'll introduce ourselves, what we do, what we hope to cover during the first season of the podcast, and some of the episodes that we'll cover, and just a little bit of chat so you get to know Richard and me.

(00:36):

We're not particularly good at introducing ourselves. So I'm gonna have a go at introducing Richard and then he'll have a go at introducing me. Richard's a career risk and due diligence engineer. He's been in the business for over 40 years. He works across a whole lot of industries, Rail, Road, Marine, Chemical, Water, Gas, Electricity... you name it. He's been there and done that. So Richard's really seen as one of the world leaders risk and due diligence business.

(01:07):

I've been working with Richard at R2A for over 25 years and started as a grad engineer. So we've worked together a lot. Richard also does a lot of courses through Engineering Education Australia, as well as in-house courses of our own on risk and due diligence and project due diligence and governance. And we also have a couple of booklets that we've co-authored together- Criminal Manslaughter, Engineering Due Diligence, and our new one Project Governance.

(01:34):

So, Richard Richard's been in the industry for a long time. He does have a little bit of a warped sense of humor and you need to get to know him a little bit better. My sister actually worked with us many years ago and she said he reminded her of Mr. Bean and some of his tall lankiness and his jokes.

(01:54):

So, that was a pretty nice introduction, Richard. So I'm hoping for the same.

Richard Robinson (01:59):

Well, good morning everyone. <laugh>. This is Gaye Francis, my business partner, now of about 20 years, although we've been working together for close to 30 years as she pointed out. In that time she got married and had two kids, Charlotte and Amelia. And I've gotta say at this point, the husband got displaced abruptly on her phone by the kids when they arrived!

(02:22):

Just to give you an idea, one of the first things I said to her when we first met, she was asking what this risk business was about and I said, well, think about it. There are three key terms, they are eek, e and oops. And she said, well, yes, I can add a fourth term to that. And that is grrr, which mostly happens when you're working with older males. So she's had a few life experiences like that, I understand <laugh>.

(02:46):

Possibly the other thing which I found most entertaining about her is that she actually trained as a chemical engineer. And when she went into industry, and I had personal experience with this 'cos I was there, she discovered she was actually allergic to chemicals, which is, and I have to point out actually never gets old <laugh>.

Gaye Francis (03:03):

It's a bit embarrassing, but I, I must admit, some of the things that I've done at R2A has got me outta my comfort zone and challenged me, no end. I'm actually scared of heights and I've climbed up the side of the ship, a side of a ship out in the strait and in Tasmania and many other places around Australia. I've also climbed up onto the top of the stadium here in Melbourne to look at some roofing issues. I got the phone call to go and do that at site inspection. Richard was actually interstate and he said, can you go and do this site inspection for me? And I said, I'm wearing a skirt dress today. So raced down at lunchtime to buy pants and went and did this site inspection in the afternoon on the top of, um, yeah, a stadium roof.

Richard Robinson (03:43):

You never mentioned that you actually bought pants, you just complained that there was a problem.

Gaye Francis (03:47):

I wasn't gonna go into a site inspection like that! So yes, I've been taken out of my comfort zone a number of times.

(03:54):

So as we have said, we're business partners and we've been working at R2A for 30 years, and are career risk and due diligence engineers. We stayed in the industry and been boutique consultants, I guess, for that time. In that, I think we like to help people to solve their problems. You know, the risk business industry has become very complex. And there's a lot of resources going into it, and I'm not sure that organizations are getting bang for buck for what they're putting into it.

Richard Robinson (04:26):

That's completely the case. I mean, basically so far as we can tell, the OHS business in particular has turned into an industry, that that's sort of got a life of its own that's just quite independent of all corporate objectives and things like that. Which so far as we can tell is costing an awful lot of organizations an awful lot of money for very little result.

Gaye Francis (04:44):

And I guess our point of difference is that we come from the common law viewpoint of what would be expected to be done in the event that something happens. Which is very, very different from just applying the risk management standard, for example. So we sort of combine those two, come with a due diligence process to make organizations look at what their risk issues are and more importantly, what they have to have in place to, to manage these things.

Richard Robinson (05:12):

Yeah. It actually goes a bit further than that because one of the curious things about us, and I know a number of people have been very surprised by this about us, is that if we to figure out that we're not achieving things because, perhaps sometimes the O H S faction has particularly well entrenched and we haven't been able to get the lawyers to actually correct matters, we simply walk away. It doesn't matter, people paying us good money, if we can't achieve anything worthwhile, then we won't keep doing it. And we've walked away from major regulators in both major jurisdictions and in federal regulators who so far as we can tell, weren't applying due diligence out as expressed in the common law, which is what turned up in the WHS legislation.

Gaye Francis (05:50):

So yes, we're a little bit different in that way, but we love what we do and we really do feel that we make a difference with the people that we work with.

(05:59):

So why this podcast? So we, we've done a number of webinars, but we get asked interesting questions all throughout our work. And so we thought this podcast might be a format to be able to explore some of those issues that people ask us questions about consistently. So some of the things that we've got as our hot topics to talk about in this first season are ALARP versus SFAIRP, which is still creating a lot of confusion within the industry and organizations.

Richard Robinson (06:34):

Perhaps what confuses us the most, I mean, it all sort of popped up in 2004 in Victoria after Maxwell QC reviewed the WHS Act in Victoria, and then it got transferred into the whs legislation in most jurisdictions in 2011, 2012. But it's still causing grief and difficulty and it's generally with the technical parties, not the legal side of things; lawyers understand it quite well.

Gaye Francis (06:55):

And they're trying to align the two and there are key differences between the two terms, but people are saying that they equate to the same thing. Many industries are saying that they're equating to the same thing.

Richard Robinson (07:07):

Well, it is true, a rose by any other name. And a lot of people have been basically defining ALARP as SFAIRP, but we don't understand why you bother to do that. You might as well make it clear there was a difference and that you've changed and effectively moved to the right place.

Gaye Francis (07:21):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So another (topic), we get a lot of discussion points on is standards and how standards are used. And they're really backwards looking; they're written retrospectively and they're not forward looking.

Richard Robinson (07:35):

And the way Australia's been using standards lately, we are actually going backwards. Because under the whs legislation for example, it's quite clear you've got to achieve things 'so far it's reasonably practical'. That is, if you can do better than the standard, than you've gotta get there. So the standards are merely the starting point, if you're talking about a technical standard, you can't design by standards and have useful innovation. And so we, as far as we can tell, innovation is being suppressed in way by the use of standards

Gaye Francis (08:03):

And the comment of a lot of organizations "we've always done it that way" doesn't roll anymore. No, you can't do that. You've gotta always look forward. What else can we do?

Richard Robinson (08:13):

To the extent that you have control, you have to demonstrate that you've done the best that you can.

Gaye Francis (08:19):

And that's for all parties involved in the process, not just, you know, a single party.

(08:25):

Code of practice in the ISO 31000, there's a mismatch of ideas there and that's unfortunate.

Richard Robinson (08:33):

ISO 31000 has done a lot of damage to Australian industry in the last 20 years. And since it's now inconsistent with the legislation, we don't understand why people are still basically designing to it. An awful lot of governments trying to do it too. And this just doesn't make sense anymore.

Gaye Francis (08:47):

Regulations and license to trade. One of the interesting things there is the requirements of the regulators are often or, or can be, um,

Richard Robinson (08:57):

Inconsistent.

Gaye Francis (08:58):

Inconsistent. Thank you Richard. With the, the legislation. So, some organizations are actually having to do two processes to get one for a license to trade and then to meet their statutory obligations.

Richard Robinson (09:12):

Yes. Particularly when the regulators got it wrong. Um, it's one of these things, if you want the license to trade, you got to satisfy the regulator. If you want to satisfy the legislation you often have to do something different. And that's when we often have to walk away from a regulator when they don't recognize that.

Gaye Francis (09:25):

So many of these topics and some of our regular listeners to our webinars and (other resources) will have heard us say this and we've sort of tiptoed around some of these subjects over the last 10 years as to, not to offend anyone, but I think as we go further and further in this legislation, as Richard says it's been in Victoria since 2004 and in most of the rest of Australia since 2012, we're now 10 years down the track plus and we're still facing some of the issues that you would expect to see in the first couple of years of this legislation.

(10:04):

A couple of other interesting topics that we have on the cards is risk appetite and zero harm and organizations trying to relate those two ideas of risks. They're actually two different risk models.

Richard Robinson (10:16):

Yeah. And the confusion is mostly at board level. I don't think the troops have the confusion. It's mostly at board level. And we've briefed a number of boards lately where they simply didn't understand. And so far as we can tell, they've been taking their advice exclusively from management consultants. Um, and that's

Gaye Francis (10:33):

Not the technical view

Richard Robinson (10:34):

And there's been no technical view. And when you live in advanced technological society, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Gaye Francis (10:39):

<affirmative>. And the language of risk and the complexity of it and how people are actually using some of the words.

Richard Robinson (10:47):

Well, just risk alone, it's a mess. I mean, the insurance world talks about it as the now, and most technical people think of it's likely and consequence simultaneously, but when you're in court and it's all gone wrong, and the facts are certain it's a particular instance, and you really talk about the likelihood of that particular instance occurring. And so when people use the word risk, everyone's confused.

Gaye Francis (11:07):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

(11:08):

So they're some of the hot topics that have been our standout items and concern I guess over the last 10 years and what people have ome to us and said 'we'd like to know more about this'. But we really want this podcast to be a timely, interesting session. So if any of our listeners have got any ideas and things that they'd like to discuss

Richard Robinson (11:29):

Well, people that they'd like us to interview. Probably in the second season we expect to be actually interviewing various people in various (organisations) who've had particular frustrations, particularly when somebody's, for example, adapted the mismanagement standard to the septe process. That's crime prevention through design. There's some weird things going on out there that make no sense.

Gaye Francis (11:49):

<affirmative> and even industry specific things. So the topics that we've sort of outlined go across the industries, but there are some issues of concern and issues facing specific industries that are relevant there as well.

Richard Robinson (12:02):

Probably particularly important. So just people understand. Uh, I mean, um, just before Covid, R2A together with the Victorian Bar sponsored the professor and law and public policy out of Cambridge, David Howth, and the reason why we're interested in him is he's got a book of out of law and engineering, and the point that he makes on his presentations is that what the lawyers are actually doing, at least the big UK and US firms, is that they're actually adopting and deliberately studying the engineering design process. Because basically the point he makes is if you're a lawyer, and it's what happens with engineers, and somebody turns up with a problem or something they want to do, and then basically what you're saying is in the circumstances, these are the options, and which one in all your circumstances is the best and that's the best way forward.

(12:44):

And that's just the base act in engineering design process, um, and which the engineers have been doing now for a very long time. But which seems to be sort of a 10 year transition for the for the lawyers. We certainly came across this long time ago with a lawyer from Baker Mackenzie, and he made the point, there are two types of lawyers out there: those who will tell you what the law is, and those who say, in the circumstances, what are your options and which is the best? So certainly a lot of lawyers in Australia have been thinking about it, although we haven't necessarily seen all the law firms adopting it.

Gaye Francis (13:15):

<affirmative>. So that's sort of an overview of our podcast season one. We hope you can join us the next couple of episodes. And as we have both said, if you'd like us to talk about anything in particular, we'd love to for you to drop us a line. So have a great day and we hope to see you next time.