The UK’s top maritime professional organisations are working together to make their voice heard on key issues and bringing expertise to the UK Maritime Industry.
While the size of the British merchant fleet may have declined significantly over the past several decades the UK continues to be well endowed with maritime expertise.
For generations, professional organisations have provided a key source of expertise helping to maintain the right standards across industrial sectors ashore. However just over three years ago a number of maritime-linked bodies came to the view that this has not been happening within the maritime sector and, often, regulators and employers had been missing out on the years of experience leading professionals can bring to the table.
So on Merchant Navy Day, 3rd September 2021 a number of national and global professional associations based in the UK launched the Maritime Professional Council (MPC) to make sure policy makers are aware of the considered professional opinions of those with the qualifications, expertise and experience to provide informed advice on the many policy decisions that need to be made.
The MPC aims to bring together the collective voices of the UK-based professional organisations for the British Merchant Navy and associated Maritime Industry. It strives to promote professionalism within the industry and offer expert opinion on maritime matters to the maritime community, industry, government and the media.
The founding organisations of the MPC included the Honourable Company of Master Mariners (HCMM), The Nautical Institute (NI), International Institute of Marine Surveying (IIMS).They have since been joined Factors Reporting Programme (CHIRP), Intermanager, Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMAREST), Maritime Volunteer Service, The Professional Charter Association (PCA), Trinity House and Trinity Maritime. In addition The Institute of Seamanship and The United Kingdom Maritime Pilots Association are supporting organisations.
The organisations in the MPC believe that the government-and government-aligned bodies charged with policy and direction of the Merchant Navy and the wider maritime-linked industries need the best practical pool of experience to draw upon. The MPC’s experts are able to contribute to policy discussions from an international perspective as well as sharing their in-depth understanding of the UK’s maritime industries.
While the individual maritime professional bodies have long been respected within the shipping industry, their knowledge and experience had been rarely sought when decisions were made on key policy and legislative changes. The MPC is working to change that.
The MPC provides a common space for collaboration, and exchange of ideas between the major technical organisations closely allied with the maritime industries. In a relatively short space of time the MPC has become a key source of knowledge and opinion reflective of the skills, experience, and professional status of the membership of the individual member organisations.
MPC chairman Derek Chadburn emphasises. “We have increased membership, bringing an even wider range of expertise including on our important small commercial vessel and inland waterways sector.”
“Importantly,” Chadburn adds: “we have raised our profile with the government and established a channel of communication with the MCA”
Turning to specific issues tackled by the MPC so far he notes: “Earlier this year we held a workshop and produced a document on the importance of Kind Leadership. Moreover we have established a number of sub groups to address important issues, topically including the dangers posed by lithium batteries but also focusing on a wide range serious challenges for our industries.”
There is already a long list of issues that the MPC has tackled, prominent among them is deaths in enclosed spaces. Appalled that such deaths continue to be all too frequent occurrences in the the shipping industry, it calls for fundamental changes to ship operation and design. It welcomes the shipping industry’s new roadmap to prevent this needless loss of life.
MPC member InterManager, the global body which represents ship managers, has been at the forefront of raising this issue. It says: ”Seemingly innocuous compartments, cargo holds and fuel tanks, vital for storage and operation on board any vessel, have become graveyards for far too many seafarers due to a lack of attention, regulation, and understanding.”
A surge of enclosed space related deaths on ships in late 2023 led InterManager to call on the shipping industry to work together to improve safety in these challenging onboard areas. In December last year the deaths of three seafarers and five shore workers in accidents in enclosed spaces in just seven days brought the total known deaths in these dangerous areas of vessels in 2023 to 31. InterManager records these incidents on behalf of the wider shipping community. Its statistics show that since 1996, 310 people lost their lives in enclosed spaces on ships – 224 seafarers and 86 shore personnel in 197 accidents.
InterManager’s secretary general Captain Kuba Szymanski warned: “It’s a minefield. We’ve created an unsafe environment, and then we blame people for not navigating it properly. It’s absurd.” He highlighted the ineffectiveness of International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations introduced in 2011, intended to prevent enclosed space fatalities. “Since 2011, an increase in fatalities in our data is related to the introduction of new IMO introduced regulation. This regulation hoped to eradicate all enclosed space accidents. But it was evident that it didn’t because the shipping industry was barking up the wrong tree.” Specifically he argued: “One of the biggest issues is the flawed design of enclosed spaces.” This particularly includes cargo hold access arrangements. As an industry, “we need to have one voice, one approach to safety. Fragmented standards and practices only put lives at risk.”
The MPC has been encouraged by the shipping industry’s response to Capt. Szymanski’s plea for collaboration and unity across. The formation this year of a pan-maritime industry group and Enclosed Space Entry – Joint Industry Workshop meetings, demonstrates the industry’s commitment to addressing this issue. Two Workshops, with the most recent this July, took place at the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) office in London. The MPC believes the creation of the group to provide a single voice on enclosed space deaths is a major step forward.
Other critical issues that have been tackled by the MPC include lifeboat drill deaths, the threat posed by lithium batteries and the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning. It also not shied away from controversy and issued a strong statement in support of seafarers sacked by P&O Ferries. Intermanager Capt. Garry Hallett adds: “We have also contributed in the UK MCA reviews on the code of safe working practices for the UK MPC especially in the chapters on extreme weather, working at height and, of course, enclosed spaces.”
The MPC has also been closely involved in discussions on the future of nautical training and the revision of the the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW). Also looking to future of the maritime sector, the MPC has been involved in ongoing discussions on Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) as well a providing input on changes to regulations covering small seagoing commercial vessels and inland waterways.
But the probably the important message that the MPC has sending out for longer term is that the shipping industry needs to embrace a new management approach if it is to make the most of its key asset, its people. MPC members have been working hard to promote the concept of Kind Leadership (KL) as the way forward.
The MPC emphasises that KL is not ‘soft leadership’ but an effective and considerate way of safely achieving optimum industry productivity and efficiency, both at sea and ashore. This approach is attracting broad support. In June this year 50 selected participants representing the maritime industry’s Regulatory, Education, Legal, Commercial, and Voluntary sectors took part in an MPC-organised workshop in London where they wholeheartedly endorsed the concept.
The MPC’s Vice Chair (Nautical), and CEO of The Nautical Institute, John Lloyd, notes: “The MPC UK brought together industry leaders and stakeholders from across the industry to review the work to date on Kind Leadership and to help create a pathway that leads to widespread adoption.”
In his keynote speech at the workshop Ritesh Prakashan, HQSE Manager of Zodiac Maritime, shared a shipmaster’s perspective on Kind Leadership and explained how his experiences at sea led him to understand the need for a `kind’ approach to leadership.
Feedback from workshop is currently being assessed with a view to further engagement with the industry as part of this important initiative.
So is the MPC making a difference? Mike Schwarz, IIMS CEO, responds: “In its relatively short existence, the MPC has tackled some thorny issues head-on. I am proud of the work we are doing, bringing diverse maritime organisations together to collaborate under one unified banner to discuss topical issues and to challenge the industry and its regulators.”