This is a bit strange coming from your auditing body but there’s no real reason to have a huge safety plan The biggest headache for us at AdventureMark is reading huge safety plans! One of my favourite quotes I heard recently is, “I didn’t read the whole thing, but who does?” This leads to the question: Who is the safety plan for? It’s not for the auditor.

Your safety plan (SMS, SMP, SOP, AMP,SOG’s, etc) needs to be written in a way that you and your staff have a clear picture of the operation and how to perform each role. If your staff don’t understand what in the plan, it needs to be changed or simplified. 

2023 has been a year of 'hurry-up-and-wait' for Adventure Activities. We’re expecting a new Safety Audit Standard for Adventure Activities to be published but this looks like it may only be implemented next year (on a separate note, don’t think of it as a Safety Audit Standard, but rather a Safety Standard: operators have to comply with the Standard every day of operating, but only get audited against it about one a year).

Why not use 2023 to have a good look at what your safety plan looks like, what it is supposed to achieve, and whether it could use a really good haircut to be easier for everyone to follow? The changes to the Safety Standard will likely require you to make some minor changes anyway. This is a good opportunity to make the best of the situation.


What can I change?
Goals and objectives are sometime perceived to be a requirement of the Safety Standard that doesn’t really play a valuable part in operations. In reality, almost every operator has great safety objectives that just aren’t identified as such. Something like renewing outdoor 1st aid quals or upgrading them to a higher qualification is a great objective that’s often overlooked as normal business. 
 
Another good update that a lot of us can make is to consolidate all our operational information (how we run activities) into a simple, step-by-step handbook. Imagine how easy it would be to train staff, and have trips run to plan if there was a bulleted method for all the steps from the beginning to end of the activity. Once completed, you’ll probably find you’ve met all the criteria in the Safety Standard around what a SOP is supposed to contain.
 
 
Document control. When we make any changes, it can be valuable to record what and where these changes are made. This way your staff can see what new information there is since they last looked through the safety plan without having to read through the whole document to find any updates. Have a tidy filing procedure for ensuring that only a single version of the latest documents is usable by yourself and staff. Audits can go over the estimated time because half-way through the operator says, “Oops, I sent you the old version”. I did an audit where three different incident report forms were being used. Taking the time to archive previous versions means you’ll have a simpler safety plan and staff will spend less time on paperwork and more time with your customers.
 
Technical advisors are probably the most underrated part of the whole Adventure Activities Certification Scheme. While there is a lot of good intellectual property in businesses, safety should be shared and not be hidden from other people in the industry. When incidents happen, everyone in the industry should have the opportunity to learn from them, so that something similar can be avoided in the future. Discussions with other operators, guides and instructors should happen wherever and whenever possible. Getting someone else to look over your SOP or risk management plan normally always provides a different perspective and helps identify things that we can overlook because we’re working in it every day. This should be a two way street, I bet you’ve got lots of valuable insight for them.
 
This is not a comprehensive list of improvements and considerations. I’d recommend going through the new Standard when it is published and ask yourself, “how can I use each criteria to update my safety plan to me more user-friendly?”. The requirement to follow the Adventure Activities Regulations isn’t going to go away. The best thing we can do is make it for us as best we can.