What I would like to point out, though, is that in a functioning safety management system, if I receive a report from nine out of 10 employees that I have a problem in a specific area of my operations, it would behoove me to do something about it. It would behoove me to study the report, ask questions about it and do something with this information, be it to address the issue or, which is entirely acceptable, do nothing. But you can't ignore it. You have to look at it and you have to do some study of it.
On the other hand, there's the other aspect, which is that in a functioning safety management system we do not belittle whatever information comes to us. We do not say that it's an outlying report or it's disgruntled employees or.... Because that does not support continuous reporting, which is the basis for this process. If you dissuade people from reporting into the system, then you have, as Mr. Reason says, a “pathological” company that can not operate by itself. It needs to be regulated.