The role of the Accountable Manager is often treated as a signature function. Sign the exposition, approve the safety policy, attend the annual management review. The regulatory intent is considerably more demanding.

Under ORO.GEN.210, the Accountable Manager must ensure that the compliance monitoring function has access to all parts of the organisation and, where relevant, to contracted organisations. This is not a passive responsibility. It requires active engagement with the findings and trends produced by the compliance monitoring system — not just formal sign-off on a report.

The most common failure mode: the Accountable Manager receives a summary report confirming that audits were completed and findings were closed. This provides assurance of process activity, not operational compliance. The question that should be asked at every management review is not “were the audits done?” but “what do the findings tell us about the health of our compliance system?”

An Accountable Manager who cannot answer that question has a reporting problem, a monitoring problem, or both.

Take-away:  Accountable Manager engagement with compliance monitoring means understanding what findings indicate — not just confirming that findings were closed.