Organisations of every size and sector and from all over the world have won the prestigious British Safety Council International Safety Award (ISA), given in recognition of an organisation’s proven commitment to workplace health and safety.

601 organisations from the public, private and third sectors applied for the long-established award which was opened up to non-members for the first time this year with new distinction and merit categories added.

Among the winners are Babcock Critical Services who won three distinctions for their Edinburgh, Gatwick and Heathrow airports operations. CLC Group Ltd and Croudace Homes also won distinctions and added to their haul of previous ISAs – CLC Group and Croudace Homes have won ISAs for 32 and 30 years consecutive years respectively.

Announcing the results, Julie Nerney, British Safety Council chief executive, said:

“It is a huge pleasure for me to extend my warm and heartfelt congratulations to such a diverse range of worthy winners who have shown their commitment to keeping their employees safe.

“The response to the awards has been remarkable, especially as we decided to raise the bar and introduce new categories in order to challenge companies to do even better.

“And do better they certainly did, with 33 of the 546 winners achieving a 100% pass rate and a distinction, 283 attaining a merit and 230 others a pass.

“The ISAs are judged by an independent panel of experts who look for hard evidence of how an organisation maintains acceptable standards of health and safety on the ground.

“Health and safety regulation is under the spotlight as never before and we must all do our utmost to achieve better results with fewer resources. The benefits that well managed health and safety bring both to business and to the economy are well documented. Successful business management and well managed health and safety go hand-in-hand.

“But the wellbeing of workers is non-negotiable and all of these winners have demonstrated their leadership in this vital area and their determination, like us, to do everything they can to ensure that no one is killed, injured or made ill by their work.”