Corporate Governance and Occupational Risk — Board Accountability, Material Controls and Effective Assurance

Occupational risk is often treated as the responsibility of the safety department. That is a fundamental governance mistake.

When failures can affect people, legal compliance, business continuity, reputation or an organisation’s licence to operate, responsibility reaches the boardroom.

Corporate Governance and Occupational Risk is a practical, experience-led guide for directors, trustees, executives, senior managers, risk professionals and safety leaders. Written by experienced operational leader Robert Porter, it explains how corporate decisions influence the conditions experienced by workers at the point of work.

The book examines board accountability, directors’ duties, risk appetite, material controls, critical-control management, ISO 45001, occupational health, psychosocial risk, contractor governance, culture, assurance mapping, internal audit, performance reporting and organisational learning.

It also provides focused guidance on the UK Corporate Governance Code 2024 and Provision 29, helping readers understand how occupational controls can form part of a company’s operational, reporting and compliance control framework.

Practical board questions, governance scenarios, experience points, knowledge checks and 30- and 90-day improvement plans turn complex governance principles into actions that can be applied in real organisations.

Key subjects include:

• Board and executive accountability

• UK health and safety duties

• Corporate manslaughter and individual liability

• Material and critical controls

• Risk ownership, appetite and escalation

• Assurance versus reassurance

• Leading and lagging indicators

• Worker participation and psychological safety

• Contractor and supply-chain governance

• Due diligence, investment and asset integrity

• Incident investigation and organisational learning

• Provision 29 readiness and control declarations

Corporate Governance and Occupational Risk makes one principle unmistakably clear: governance is credible only when it changes what happens on the ground.

This is an independent informational and study guide. It is not official IOSH, ISO, HSE, FRC or IIA material and does not provide legal advice, certification or professional accreditation.