AE444 CHEAT SHEET
AE444
Introduced xx Aug 2014
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Environmental Incident
Reporting and Management
Note: only asterisked (*) items are mandatory. They are identified here in red.
Part A – Notification
1. Incident type
 You are able to select multiple incident types.
 For full definitions, refer DNES
o Incident – “an activity or omission that impacts the environment”
o Near miss – “an activity or omission that did not impact the
environment but could have”
o Observation – “an unusual, unexpected or noteworthy occurrence of
potential environmental significance… OR an idea that would
improve the environmental performance of a Defence activity or
asset”
o Non-conformance – “an action or omission that did not meet
Defence’s environmental operational controls including DIs, ECC,
RSOs, SOPs, SOs, Base Instructions, EMS, etc., OR an action or
omission that did not meet external conditions placed on Defence”
o Complaint – “negative feedback relating to the environmental
performance of Defence or Defence’s contractors or third parties”.
 Major, Moderate and Minor definitions, refer Environmental Incidents
homepage.
2. Location of incident
 Select the Region the incident, near miss, observation, non-conformance
or complaint) occurred in.
o If the incident occurred across more than one Region, select one
Region and describe the affected Regions in the ‘Location
description’ field.
 Select the Property name. These names are as per the DEMS database.
The DEMS id will appear when you select a property if you wish to
confirm you have the correct property.
 Note: if the incident did not occur on a Defence Base or property, “nonEstate Training Area” should be selected. This is intended to cover
incidents that occur in transit or from the air.
 If you cannot find the correct property, you can check on DEMS or call
your local Base Support, or you can select the nearest property and
write the correct property in the ‘Location Description’.
 In the ‘Location description’ field, you should include any information that
will help someone else identify where the incident occurred and/or where
it impacted.
 If the incident occurred on a Defence or non-Defence Training Area,
select ‘Yes’. This ensures we notify the DOTAMS and the RCO. If the
incident occurred in the cantonment area of a Training Area, select ‘No’.

“GPS Location”: if you have access to GPS or map location details, you
can include them here. It is important you select WGS or GDA if using a
GPS. If the incident is an area rather than a point, describe this, together
with any other further information about the source or other, in the “Data
source” text box.
3. Time of incident
 Date occurred: This is the day on which the incident occurred, or in the
case of a multi-day incident (such as a leak) when the incident started. A
calendar should pop-up for you to select on.
 Time occurred: This is the approximate time the incident occurred. This
field is free text to allow for description but the format should be in 24
hour clock if possible.
 Date reported: This is when the incident was noticed and/or reported to
the appropriate manager / supervisor / commander. This is intended to
capture situations where there is a delay between when the incident
occurred and when it was noticed or reported (there may be many
reasons for the delay). The AE444 incident report that you submit will be
date stamped automatically.
 Time reported: This is the approximate timing of the incident being
noticed and/or reported to appropriate manager / supervisor /
commander.
 Unknown / Not Applicable:
o Sometimes the timing of the incident won’t be known, i.e. a leak
o Some types of incidents won’t have a time component; for example,
an observation or non-conformance relating to a process may be ‘ongoing’.
4. Description of incident
 ‘Description’: this is the ‘what, when, who, where’ of the incident.
Sufficient detail should be included here for a person reviewing the
incident to gain a basic understanding of the background to the incident,
what incident occurred, who was involved (whether directly, indirectly or
as a bystander) and what the outcomes of the incident were.
 ‘An AC563 Defence Work Health Safety Incident Report form has been
completed in relation to this incident’: if the incident resulted in a
personal injury, this must be reported through Sentinel. If a WHS
incident has been lodged, please report the reference number here. This
allows us to easily link WHS incidents to Environmental incidents.
 Note that the reference to AC563 is outdated and Sentinel is the
appropriate reporting mechanism.
5. Intermediate response action(s) taken
 This should briefly describe in sequence the emergency, and other,
actions taken in response to the incident.
 Note that you add actions to the table by clicking on the ‘Add row’ button
under the table. Rows can be deleted by clicking on the ‘X’ button at the
end of the row.
 ‘Action’ should briefly describe what was done
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‘Person’ should describe who undertook the action
‘Date’ and ‘time’ should describe the approximate time at which the
actions were undertaken
6. Parties notified of incident
 The intent of this table is to identify personnel who have been informed
of the incident (these people may have already been identified via the
description or actions) and their contact details. This is to reduce
duplication and to have the contact details of relevant people correct and
quickly on hand.
 ‘Name’: the name of the person contacted
 ‘Position & unit / organisation’: this should identify the person’s relevant
position and their company or unit/group within Defence to a relevant
level of detail.
 ‘Contact details’: the best phone number(s) to contact this person on. If
relevant, email address and/or postal or physical address should be
included. When deciding what contact details to include, consider how
you contacted the person and how they might need to be contacted in
the future if the need arises. This table column can fit up to 100
characters.
 ‘Comment’: this column should include what information has been
passed to this person.
 Note that rows can be added to this table using the ‘Add row’ button.
7. Incident reporter
 This table is to record the name contact details of the incident reporter
(or the person who first notices the incident). In most circumstances this
will be the same as the person submitting the form. As per Section 6,
this ensures contact details are correct and quickly on hand.
8. Person completing this form
 It is intended that the Incident Reporter will fill out this form, however in
some circumstances, this may not be possible and a third party may fill
out the form on behalf of the Incident Reporter.
 The details of the person filling out the form should be recorded here.
Part B – Review
1. Incident type
 You are able to select multiple incident types.
 For full definitions, refer DNES
o Incident – “an activity or omission that impacts the environment”
o Near miss – “an activity or omission that did not impact the
environment but could have”
o Observation – “an unusual, unexpected or noteworthy occurrence of
potential environmental significance… OR an idea that would
improve the environmental performance of a Defence activity or
asset”
o Non-conformance – “an action or omission that did not meet
Defence’s environmental operational controls including DIs, ECC,

RSOs, SOPs, SOs, Base Instructions, EMS, etc., OR an action or
omission that did not meet external conditions placed on Defence”
o Complaint – “negative feedback relating to the environmental
performance of Defence or Defence’s contractors or third parties”.
Major, Moderate and Minor definitions, refer DNES.
2. Location of incident
 Select the Region the incident, near miss, observation, non-conformance
or complaint) occurred in.
o If the incident occurred across more than one Region, select one
Region and describe the affected Regions in the ‘Location
description’ field.
 Select the Property name. These names are as per the DEMS database.
The DEMS id will appear when you select a property if you wish to
confirm you have the correct property.
 Note: if the incident did not occur on a Defence Base or property, “nonEstate Training Area” should be selected. This is intended to cover
incidents that occur in transit or from the air.
 If you cannot find the correct property, you can check on DEMS or call
your local Base Support.
 In the ‘Location description’ field, you should include a detailed
description of where the incident occurred.
 If the incident occurred on a Defence or non-Defence Training Area,
select ‘Yes’. This ensures we notify the DOTAMS and the RCO. If the
incident occurred in the cantonment area of a Training Area, select ‘No’.
 “GPS Location”: it may be possible to record this when reviewing the
incident
3. Information about the incident
 Two incident registers are maintained. The first register contains all data
from all incidents and is only available to limited staff as required, such
as Environmental and Base staff and EE Branch staff. Staff must request
access to this register. The second register includes only a brief
overview of each incident, including location, date, summary and status.
This will be available to all DRN users.
 ‘Summary (To be available to DRN users on register)’ – when
summarising the incident, Competent Persons should try provide a
concise and factual statement minimising (or avoiding completely) the
use of names and organisations.
 ‘Additional information’ – this is space for the Reviewer to add
information about the incident that was not included in the Reporter’s,
such as where the incident impacted.
 Note that documents, photos, etc can be attached to the report at any
stage using the button at the top right of the form ‘Add attachment’.
 ‘Applicable operational control(s)’ – this is space to identify any
processes, approvals, plans, or directives controlling the activity/ies
occurring when the incident took place. The control may or may not have
been directly related to the incident. This will help people collating
incident information to identify if there are certain types of controls that
fail more (or other things).
4. If spill,
 This section aims to gather information about pollution, spills, leaks and
releases (intentional or not). If the incident does not involve the release
of a contaminant, this section should be ignored.
 ‘Contained, did not impact environment’: if there was a spill but it
occurred (for example) in a bunded area or on an impermeable surface,
and the contaminant did not spill off that surface, there may not be any
environmental impact. If there was no environmental impact, this incident
may be reassessed as a ‘near miss’.
 ‘Release. Receiving environment(s)’: if the contaminant did impact the
environment, i.e. it occurred in an open area, on a permeable surface or
overflowed / drained out of a bunded area, the generic impacted or
receiving environment(s) should be identified here. More than one may
be selected if required.
 ‘Amount’: a numerical volume, area or amount of contaminant should be
identified in this box, i.e. 5, 0.231, 360, etc.
 ‘Unit’: the unit related to the amount should be identified from this
dropdown
 ‘Chemical / material’: select relevant contaminant. More than one
contaminant may be selected (although volume, area or amount can
only be selected for one contaminant). If the material spilled is not
specifically in the list, please select the nearest material (if possible) and
‘other’ and type the specific material in the text box.
5. Environmental factors impacted
 Environmental factors are defined as managed (or manageable)
environmental items. They are distinct from the ‘receiving environment’
because they are specifically managed. All environmental factors
impacted by the incident should be identified in this section.
 ‘Factor’ is the first grouping
 ‘Factor type’ is the sub-group of the factor
 Note that more than one Factor / Factor type can be identified by clicking
on the ‘Add row’ button under the dropdowns. Rows can be deleted by
clicking on the ‘X’ button at the end of the Factor type dropdowns.
6. Parties notified of incident.
 If any new parties or persons are notified at this stage, that weren’t
identified in Part A of the form, these can be identified here.
 The intent of this table is to reduce duplication and to have the contact
details of relevant people correct and quickly on hand.
 ‘Name’: the name of the person contacted
 ‘Position & unit / organisation’: this should identify the person’s relevant
position and their company or unit/group within Defence to a relevant
level of detail.
 ‘Contact details’: the best phone number(s) to contact this person on. If
relevant, email address and/or postal or physical address should be
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included. When deciding what contact details to include, consider how
you contacted the person and how they might need to be contacted in
the future if the need arises. This table column can fit up to 100
characters.
‘Comment’: this column should include what information has been
passed to this person.
Note that rows can be added to this table.
7. Recommendation
 If, based on their expertise, the Competent Person judges that the
incident has been adequately dealt with and that all issues and impacts
related to the incident have been resolved (to the extent possible), the
incident can be closed at this stage.
 If, based on their expertise, the Competent Person judges that there are
issues and impacts that require further investigation, the Competent
Person should agree on an Incident Manager with the relevant BSM.
The Incident Manager should be identified here. Upon submission, the
Incident Manager’s name should be added to the email circulation.
8. Person completing this form
 It is intended that this is the Competent Person. Their details should be
recorded here as they can become separated from the form once
submitted.
Part C – Investigation and action
1. Contributing factors
 This item aims to assist, simply, in identifying the factors that led to the
incident. It is also known as a ‘root cause analysis’. The aim is that by
identifying a range of contributing factors, solutions can be identified that
will prevent the same or a similar incident from recurring.
 The item contains a large number of possible contributing factors. When
a box is selected, a second box containing ‘sub-factors’ pops up
underneath.
 Multiple factors and sub-factors may be selected.
 There is no way to identify the relative importance of a contributing
factor.
 Ticking ‘Other’ provides a space to identify any contributing factors not in
the long list. Users are encouraged to the use the list where possible.
 ‘Discussion’ – this space is for any commentary on the selected
contributing factors.
2. Related documents, other investigations
 This is a text box to list the titles of any related documents, including
separate investigations undertaken. Objective Ref numbers should be
specified where possible.
 Note that documents, photos, etc can be attached to the report at any
stage using the button at the top right of the form ‘Add attachment’.
3. Tasking actions and outcomes
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This item consists of two tables: an Actions table and an Outcomes
table.
Action Number 1 (in the first ‘Actions’ table) should correspond to
Outcome Number 1 (in the second ‘Outcomes’ table).
Corrective and Preventative Actions should be recorded in the first table.
(Action owners will need to be tasked separately)
The outcomes of the Actions should be recorded in the second table.
4. Incident close-out
 Incident debrief files, minutes or other can be recorded here
 If lessons learnt are developed, shared or addressed in another manner,
a reference to the file, minutes or presentation can be entered
5. Person completing this form
 It is intended that this is the Incident Manager. Their details should be
recorded here as they can become separated from the form once
submitted.
6. Incident response complete
 This item is used to show that the environmental manager and the
Estate manager are satisfied that the incident record can be closed.
 The environmental manager should select the appropriate title and use
the digital signature
 The Estate manager should select the appropriate title and use the
digital signature.
 In the event that the relevant manager(s) do(es) not have a DRN
signature, the form should be saved and manually emailed, with ‘Incident
Closed’ in the header, to the Environmental Incidents mailbox:
environmental.incidents@defence.gov.au and other relevant
stakeholders.