The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a £2-3m (~€2.2-3.3m) contract for safety training for error prevention to Baines Simmons.
Baines Simmons is a subsidiary of Air Partner PLC, and was awarded the contract for safety training for error prevention (STEP) in partnership with Frazer-Nash Consultancy. The contract will last for four years, and also contains options for two one-year extensions.
The contract will allow the two companies to provide support to STEP operations, and was offered as a means of developing technical support to assist cultural change and facilitate the establishment of more effective safety management systems across the entirety of the defence aviation environment.
How will the contract be fulfilled?
This work will include the implementation of embedded error management, to allow safety management systems in the defence aviation environment to reach new levels of maturity. It will act as a successor to the UK government’s prior defence aviation error management system programme.
The companies have also identified the potential for safety training for error prevention to deliver training needs analysis, to identify emerging training requirements across other domains beyond aviation defence, and suggested that they could then develop the necessary training and technical support solutions.
What has Baines Simmons said?
Mark Briffa, CEO of parent company Air Partner, said that Baines Simmons welcomed the ministry of defence’s efforts to improve safety in defence aviation: “This is an extremely important initiative for the MOD and I am delighted that we will be supporting them as they take this next step in further strengthening the safety processes they have in place”.
Baines Simmons’ STEP programme manager, Andy Llewellyn, highlighted that the new contract builds upon and strengthens previous work on defence aviation error management systems, and that it will lay the groundwork for stronger safety management systems across the ministry of defence as a whole.
He said: “Together with the safety professionals within the Military Aviation Authority and those across the defence aviation environment regulated community … we have paved the way for the STEP programme. This represents a challenging but exciting opportunity and we will continue to act as trusted advisors to the MoD and assist in any way we can to ensure that an effective safety management system prevails.”
