2017.9.22
Joyce Wen
The “13th Five-Year Plan for the Management of Work Safety Emergency Responses” (the “Plan”) promulgated by the State Administration of Work Safety on September 22 set out a series of rules regarding the management of work safety emergency responses during the 13th Five-Year period. It is intended that by 2020, there will be an uniformly government-led, coordinated between departments, voluntarily complied by enterprises, jointly participated by the public, work safety emergency response management system with smooth interactions between the government and the private sector that echoes a well-off society, appropriate to the safety risks in production, and covers the entire emergency response management process, leading to a comprehensive improvement in the management capabilities of work safety emergency responses. In particular, the Plan primarily clarifies the following missions:
- Fulfillment of emergency response management responsibilities
The Plan stresses once again the need to strictly implement the work responsibility system where the main responsible person of an enterprise is the person principally responsible for the management of its work safety emergency responses and to improve enterprise first response mechanisms. The Plan also requires an enterprise to establish a safety risk assessment and full notification system. For an enterprise above a certain size threshold operating in a risky industry, the Plan hopes that a dedicated emergency response team equipped with emergency response materials and equipment can be established. Meanwhile, the Plan also calls for improvements in emergency response arrangements, in particular those in key positions and areas. In addition, there shall be more systematic, fully participated and diverse emergency response drills conducted by enterprises in risky industries to strengthen their first-response abilities.
- Improvement on the legal system for emergency response management
For the emergency response management system, the Plan intends to formulate dedicated regulations, such as the Regulation on Work Safety Emergency Responses, and local regulatory systems for managing work safety emergency responses as soon as possible. The Plan also intends to set up a standard system for the management of work safety emergency responses, promote and formulate paid public emergency relief services policies, compensatory policies applied to emergency response materials, personal insurance of emergency responders as well as consolation and recognition for injuries and deaths suffered, incentives for emergency response teams and protection of their operations, and “green lanes” where emergency relief vehicles will not be charged any tolls in the course of emergency relief operations.
- Improved system and mechanisms for emergency responses
With respect to the emergency response management system, the Plan seeks to improve the emergency response management system, perfect the unified mechanisms for emergency coordination under both peacetime and wartime scenarios, improve the early warning mechanisms for emergency responses, promote and develop risk assessment, scenario construction and innovation of work models for the management of work safety emergency responses.
- Enhanced development of emergency response capacity
The Plan hopes to develop an assessment of the required work safety emergency response capacities on a national and regional basis so as to reasonably plan and adjust the development of emergency response teams for enhancing the emergency relief capabilities of local core teams, grassroots teams and enterprise teams. Meanwhile, the Plan indicates a need to strengthen the specialized aid equipment for work safety emergency response and relief operations, and market-oriented and social rescue models are encouraged.
- Enhanced management and drill level for emergency plans
According to the Plan, it is necessary to fully optimize emergency plans, enhance the management of and connection between emergency plans, promote the normalization and practical efficacy of emergency response drills, as well as improve their quality and actual benefits.
- Enhanced training and education on emergency response management
The Plan will formulate (amend) the guidelines for work safety emergency response training for all kinds of personnel, regulate and improve the contents of such training, prepare targeted and practically effective emergency response training materials. It is also hoped that a tiered training system can be set up to promote the education of emergency response management and develop a culture of responding to emergencies.
- Improved information platform and system for emergency responses
The Plan seeks to improve an interconnected work safety emergency platform to realize a uniform and complete set of rules on dealing with work safety emergency response that are helpful and useful for use in emergency applications, enable the sharing emergency response information and resources, and allow the completion of the informatization of equipment science. Meanwhile, the Plan intends to promote a cloud service for work safety emergency response and enhance big data analysis and application in emergency responses.
- Enhanced ability to support and safeguard emergency responses
The Plan also refers to the need to strengthen research and development in the emergency response and rescue field, greater transformation and promotion of achievements, increase the support to the emergency response industry, as well as providing better protection to specialists and emergency response materials. Based on the major missions outlined above, the Plan will primarily seek to make a comprehensive increase in work safety emergency response management capabilities.
For enterprises, they are likely to put greater focus on work safety. It is advised to pay close attention to work safety laws and regulations for a certain period of time in the near future to avoid compliance risks.