Goal-setting health & safety legislation & its application in the extractives industries

The Mining Institute of Scotland (MIS) are pleased to announce their March meeting which is being run jointly with the Institute of Quarrying and will be delivered by Kevin Wilson, HM Chief Inspector of Mines at the Health & Safety Authority.

This lecture will explore the similarities between the Quarries Regulations 1999 and The Mines Regulations 2014 as they apply to the extractive industries.  Kevin will discuss that goal setting is enabling legislation and should not be a bar to innovation or technological advancement. He will explore the common threads between the mining and quarrying sectors with regards to risk assessment and identifying risk controls as part of safety management systems, competence and competence management. Issues applicable to both sectors will be looked at including geotechnical, explosives, asset integrity and maintenance management and the HSE’s Major Hazard Regulatory Model will be discussed, highlighting the focus on major hazards within the mining sector.

Kevin Wilson is from a family with multi-generational links to the mining industry.  He joined the National Coal Board in Nottinghamshire Coalfield during the mid 1980’s and was recruited onto the NCB’s management training scheme. He completed his education to Chartered Engineer at Trent Polytechnic and at Doncaster College with candidates from the quarrying sector, subsequently gaining his Mining 1st Class Certificate of competency under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954. Kevin was working at Bilsthorpe Colliery in 1993, when a major fall of ground resulted in the death of three miners. The experience of this tragedy has forged his career direction since. Following the contraction of the coal mining industry in the late 1990’s, Kevin joined the Health and Safety Executive, and has since gained experience as an Inspector covering heavy industries, a construction Inspector covering major infrastructure projects/tunnelling, together with maintaining regulatory responsibilities across the quarrying and opencast coal sectors. In 2014 Kevin moved to the Mines Inspectorate returning to his underground mining roots and in 2023 was promoted to be the Chief Inspector of Mines.

This meeting is a hybrid meeting with the lecture being held in person at the Garvock House Hotel in Dunfermline. The link to join the meeting virtually will be made available closer to the date.