Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he plans to take to ensure improved risk assessment training and a more effective reporting culture for military training exercises.

The Ministry of Defence views the risk assessment process as a critical component of safety management. Defence already undertakes specific risk assessment training either under the auspices of general training units or by specialist unit safety staff. Some online risk assessment training is also available via the Defence Learning Environment.

The Defence Safety Review which reported to the Defence Board in April 2016 made a number of specific recommendations concerning the way in which Defence could continually improve in terms of its reporting, analysis and exploitation of safety data. The Defence Safety Authority is addressing these recommendations and in particular the need to instil a culture of proactive safety reporting across all aspects of Defence activity, including training.