Busting the Awards myths

There are many common misconceptions surrounding our awards scheme. Here we aim to address a few of the key myths.

Every entry wins an award

Achieving excellence requires dedication and effort to reach the standards required. Get this right and you’ll be picking up an award!

Organisations must have a zero accident rate to enter

Having a zero accident record is not required. We’re interested in how you manage incidents, learn and improve your safety performance.

You have to win an award to attend the gala dinner

Anyone is welcome to attend! Bring your team and inspire them to enter in future.

You can’t start your RoSPA Award preparation until the scheme opens in October

Not so! Higher performing organisations do their initial thinking, planning and evidence gathering in advance (with plenty of details of concrete next steps, regarding what specifically they should look to collate and how to tie into yearly objectives etc.)

You can 'buy' a RoSPA award

You can buy a registration, but from there - whoever you are, and whichever category you enter, any resulting award is reviewed by our independent judges and assessors against our mark scheme.

You can't win Gold first time around

It's not a requirement to progress through different grades to reach Gold level. Clearly demonstrating a high-quality safety management system and answering the questions well could mean a Gold award in your first year of entry.

Only big organisations win the top awards

While larger organisations may often have more scope to innovate and try new things, the winner of our top award in 2022 had just over 200 employees - anything is possible!

The awards aren't for small companies

Small companies (50 employees or less) need a suitable, effective safety management system just as much as big ones do. Meaning you should still be able to answer the questions and the necessary evidence needed to win an award.

The awards are just for companies

Whilst our main award categories recognise health and safety excellence for organisations and their safety management systems, the Inspiration awards also celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams.

Only whole organisations can enter

Not the case. You can in fact enter on a site-by-site, divisional or country-level basis. In fact, entering several different sites into the RoSPA awards is a great way of benchmarking their performance and creating positive internal competition to drive safety standards forward.

The Awards are UK-centric and not international

Whilst the majority of our entrants come from the UK, in 2024 we had entrants from 60 different countries, all of which are able to compete on an equal footing.

I need to prepare lots of special documentation for the submission

The evidence required for your award is comprised of 'working' examples from your day-to-day policies, procedures and records. If you have an efficient safety management system and good record keeping, you will be using documentation you have already created.