AWE RECEIVES TOP UK HEALTH AND SAFETY AWARD     

17 May 2002

Representatives of AWE plc management and staff attended a ceremony in Birmingham this week at which the Company was presented with the United Kingdom’s top health and safety award by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

AWE plc manages and operates the Atomic Weapons Establishment on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Alan Brandwood, AWE’s Assurance Director and Dick Keep, of the Transport and General Workers Union, received the Sir George Earle Trophy on behalf of AWE plc from Lord Faulkner of Worcester, President of RoSPA.

The Trophy was presented for the most outstanding performance in health and safety by a company or organisation and followed a searching audit of AWE’s safety management systems and practices and a presentation to the RoSPA Award Panel.

AWE won the Trophy and the Sector Award for national defence industries, in competition with more than 1,000 companies and other organisations from the United Kingdom and abroad.

Alan Brandwood told an audience of industrialists and health and safety experts: “In winning this Award, I hope that AWE has demonstrated that nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of people and the protection of the environment.

“It has certainly generated a great deal of pride and sense of achievement among our workforce. It is an extremely important milestone for us on our journey to being in the top five per cent in safety performance in the world and will spur us on to even higher levels of achievement.

“I should like to pay tribute to RoSPA for organising this award scheme. It gives a focus for organisations to look carefully at all aspects of their health and safety management and provides an additional spur through competition to reach ever-higher standards. Competition brings improvement and the scheme is, therefore, in itself, a major contribution to health and safety throughout the United Kingdom.”

The Award citation said: “After an extremely challenging round of judging by RoSPA’s Awards Panel, AWE was chosen as this year’s Sir George Earle Trophy winner in the light of its exceptionally comprehensive approach to health and safety management.

“The panel was particularly impressed by the high level of commitment of AWE’s senior managers to the achievement of ever higher levels of health and safety performance and their approach to securing full and effective involvement of all staff and their representatives in health and safety decision making.

“Other features of AWE’s approach which influenced the Panel in its decision included: its comprehensive approach to target setting; its approach to training and to occupational health issues; its management of contractors; its commitment to learning from accidents and incidents; and the wider role it plays in helping to strengthen safety and environmental initiatives in the local community.”

AWE ALDERMASTON, READING, BERKS, RG7 4PR Switchboard: 0118 981 4111 Fax: 0118 982 4994 Direct Dialling: 0118 982 6347 or 0118 982 4812

Contact: Mark Douglas: +44 (0)20 7798 2888