safety in dozens of sectors is not guaranteed

ANP

Hans Kema

news reporter

Hans Kema

news reporter

Safety is not guaranteed in many sectors, from shipping to chemistry. There are serious doubts as to whether the necessary certificates for safety and quality are issued correctly. That says the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT). The organization conducted an investigation into its own supervision.

The ILT supervises 35 so-called systems for which safety certificates are issued. Within these systems – from fireworks to drinking water and from rail to air pollutants – the ILT must ensure that all products, equipment and services of these sectors meet the legal requirements.

This is not to say that everything is unsafe, but also not that it is 100 percent safe.

Anuschka Otten

Supervision is mainly done remotely. The ILT outsources many of its tasks to approximately 1500 certifying bodies: private companies that carry out inspections and issue certificates on behalf of the ILT.

The problem lies precisely in that collaboration. Research into – so far – eight sectors shows that the certification bodies exchange insufficient information with the ILT. As a result, the Inspectorate does not have a good idea of ​​where any safety risks lie.

In addition, the Inspectorate says that the parties with whom it cooperates do not always perform their government duties properly. For example, these parties sometimes fulfill several roles in a sector: they set a standard and at the same time monitor that standard. “Then you may ask yourself, how do you ensure that the standard does not become too flexible and that a certificate is issued too easily?” says Anuschka Otten, program manager at the ILT.

Moreover, the certification bodies have a commercial interest. If they check too closely, they risk losing customers. All this affects the independence and impartiality of the certification.

Problems in all sectors

The Inspectorate expects to see the same problems in the 27 sectors that are still being investigated. “Because we do not have sufficient visibility, we are not sure whether the issued certificate stands for safety,” says Otten. “That doesn’t mean everything is unsafe, but it doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent safe either. We don’t see it well enough.”

An important reason for the investigation was the fatal accident on a sailing ship in Harlingen in 2016. Also last August, another girl died due to the breaking of a boom on an old sailing ship. In both cases it was wood rot. After last summer’s accident, the ILT reported that almost 15 percent of the historic ships of the brown fleet did not have a valid certificate. The cause, according to the Inspectorate: problems with supervision.

One of the sectors studied that the ILT has its doubts about is the merchant shipping industry. It is sometimes not clear what the level of professional competence of captains and crew is. “There are various private and public parties that play a role in this. We see that it is not clear who is looking at what.”

Heinrich Winter, professor of Public Administration at the University of Groningen, is shocked by the ILT’s message. According to him, the government has gone too far in outsourcing tasks to commercial parties. He believes that the ILT should be given more help.

For example, a law could be made that obliges certification bodies to inform the Inspectorate. In addition, the ILT should be given more resources to be able to enforce and extra possibilities to intervene within systems.

Regain trust

Despite the problems, Winter does not think that the government should take back tasks from the market. “If you were to do that, you would have to bring a lot of expertise to the government that is currently not available. That is a huge investment. You may also wonder whether it is an efficient choice.”

Ira Helsloot, Professor of Security Management at Radboud University, is critical of the Inspectorate. He calls the ILT’s analysis a “Calimero report”, in which the Inspectorate points too much to the other parties in the certification systems and weakens its own authority. “This is a very powerful organization, both based on knowledge and enforcement instruments. The ILT itself must do its best.”

Minister Mark Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management will respond later.

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