Page 14 - Report of the railway accidents investigated in 2021

Annual report 2021
safety investigation must be conducted within 12 months during which an investigation report must also be completed. The report is signed by all members of the committee or in the absence thereof, the investigator-in-charge who conducted the investigation. The report is signed off by the director of the ESIB. The report is then forwarded to all relevant parties and published on the ESIB website. An interim report is published after 12 months if during this time the safety investigation has not been completed.
1.4 Organisational flow
The Safety Investigation Bureau is an organic part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. The Safety Investigation Bureau is the only structural unit within the Ministry that does not bear the name of a department. Depending on the size the departments may be divided into services. The building that houses the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications is also home to several other ministries which are the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Social Affairs. In the interest of rational financial costs and work organisation, they share some of the departments such as the HR department and a clerical office.
The ESIB has a small number of officials and is therefore not divided into smaller structural units. The ESIB fulfils tasks requiring special rights so therefore is different and legally more independent than other departments. In 2021, the Government of the Republic decided to give the Safety Investigation Bureau a temporary task of conducting a preliminary assessment of the circumstances of the sinking of the passenger ferry “Estonia” in 1994, as a result of which it will be decided whether to restart the investigation of the case. The Government of the Republic allocated separate financial resources, which are not part of the ESIB's budget, to form a working group on the sinking of “Estonia”. For the preliminary assessment of the fate of “Estonia”, 8 specialists, who are not civil servants, working on a fixed-term employment contract, have been employed. Their work is separate from the officials conducting the safety investigation.
The Safety Investigation Bureau’s work is managed by the director. Officials who work at the ESIB are permanent staff. Each official is responsible for conducting safety investigation of the specific area of transport assigned to them.
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