At Downer, safety isn’t just a priority—it’s embedded in everything we do.
Our unwavering commitment to health, safety, and wellbeing is driven by strong leadership, proactive risk management, and active workforce engagement.
With 155 years of rail expertise, we have built a legacy of delivering safe, reliable, and efficient transport solutions.
Safety is not just a concept—it’s our way of life.
Now, we’re taking that deep expertise and turning it into a consulting service, helping industry partners elevate their own safety standards with proven strategies, systems, and cultural initiatives.
Safety Consulting Services: Partnering for Safety Excellence
Through our Safety Consulting Services, we empower industry partners to enhance their safety performance. By leveraging our extensive experience, we translate decades of lessons learned into practical solutions that build safer, more resilient workplaces. Our track record speaks for itself, with industry-leading outcomes and positive customer feedback.
Downer is at the forefront of delivering comprehensive safety solutions, from accreditation services and governance to safety case development and advanced monitoring systems. Now, we’re extending this expertise beyond our own projects—partnering with businesses to share our insights, proven methodologies, and best practices. By working together, we can elevate safety standards, minimise risk, and drive lasting improvements across your operations.
We help businesses cultivate a strong safety culture through proven strategies, enhancing worker engagement and leadership focus. Our services include:
- Strengthening workforce participation in safety initiatives.
- Improving management and frontline leadership engagement.
- Identifying key safety indicators to drive performance improvements.
- Enhancing communication between management and workforce.
- Strengthening critical thinking for safety and organisational change management
We drive accountability and governance excellence across all levels of leadership, ensuring compliance and continuous improvement. Our expertise includes:
- Establishing clear leadership accountability for safety.
- Developing knowledge-sharing frameworks within governance committees.
- Conducting governance reviews to assess process effectiveness.
- Supporting organisations in achieving Safety and Quality certifications.
- Providing guidance on robust Safety Control and Management frameworks.
We ensure consistency, compliance, and continuous improvement in Health, Safety and Quality standards through:
- Developing repeatable, output-focused strategies.
- Conducting assurance reviews and audits to optimise processes.
- Identifying best practice and opportunities for improvement.
- Providing reviews and guidance on risk tolerability and acceptance processes
- Supporting ALARP/SFAIRP safety case development and reviews.
We support businesses in managing safety systems effectively, ensuring operational excellence which are sustainable through:
- Conducting gap analyses to identify system weaknesses.
- Addressing organisational failures with corrective/preventive actions.
- Managing change with a structured safety approach.
- Providing end user focused solutions to meet regulatory requirements.
- Developing and embedding business continuity and operational resilience strategies
Working with Safety Consulting Services
As Australia’s leading rail and transit systems provider, we enjoy working with industry to improve safety. Here’s what previous clients have said about working with the team.
“Nick and the safety team undertook a desk top review for my business to establish the current state of our approach to safety and how we were structured to integrate best practice across all departments.
The team spent several days interviewing key personnel and inspecting processes, practices, and physical site to validate the entire safety approach.
I found the team to be very professional and extremely knowledgeable with a logical approach to the assignment and a professional interaction with all involved.
The findings could have been difficult to present but Nick and the team did it in a very structured and coordinated way, providing a clear outcome and very good, robust recommendations, that enabled us to approach safety in a far more effective and progressive manner.
I was very impressed with the whole process from start to finish and the responsiveness and clear communication made it very easy to stay informed along the journey.”
- KD Adelaide
Meet the team
Meet the SCS team
Nick has nearly 25 years of experience in the Australian rail and transport industries. For the past five years, he has served as Executive General Manager of HSEQ at Downer Rail & Transit Systems.
A motivated and experienced safety leader, Nick has played key roles in several industry defining initiatives. These include his involvement with the Waterfall investigation team, the establishment of the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator, the Australian National Rules Project, and the development and implementation of the Transport for NSW Safety Management System. More recently, he led safety efforts as part of the Transport for NSW COVID-19 Taskforce.
With over 15 years of experience in quality and safety-focused roles, Brendan is a strategic leader known for his strong stakeholder engagement and facilitation skills. He has successfully led cultural transformations by tailoring his approach to meet stakeholder needs and deliver outcomes that benefit all parties.
Brendan is a skilled auditor and investigator, ensuring compliance with internal, customer, and legislative requirements, while driving practical, value-adding actions. He has developed and implemented integrated management systems across multiple businesses, always with a focus on customer satisfaction, exceeding KPIs, and delivering sustainable improvements.
A highly experienced leader with over 35 years of demonstrated success, he has delivered measurable improvements across a broad range of disciplines. He plays a key role in some of Australia’s largest transport initiatives and currently contributes to leadership teams and working groups for major rail infrastructure projects, Public Private Partnerships, and Joint Ventures.
Recognised as an industry expert in safety, engineering, and systems assurance, he has presented for national organisations such as the Rail Safety Standards Board and the International Quality and Productivity Centre. He is regularly invited to review and provide input on regulatory changes, codes of practice, and standards for peak industry bodies.
Let’s work together
Partner with Downer to strengthen your safety strategies and drive real results. Get in touch with our team to discuss your needs and explore how our expertise can support your business .