Could anyone suggest a percentage value for the safety budget from the overall project budget. I appreciate that this might vary depending on locations, projects, clients etc. I am looking for a rough guide and if you have had the experience, if the percentage sum (safety budget) was sufficient to deliver a safe project.

I was looking for the whole budget, wages, materials (PPE, testing equipment), training etc, if possible, however, any information would be gratefully received. Thanks

I think that it would be fairly easy to construct an argument to say that the safety budget is almost equal to the entire project cost. Consider the effect of an under-spend on materials (inferior quality, unreliable, leads to collapse) on personnel (less competence, greater errors) on equipment (collapse, explosion, fire, falls, injuries) on professional advice (inadequate design, assembly). Specifying and procuring adequate resources is fundamental to safety. Also, the type of project will have a very great impact on what is required to do the job in safety and complete a safe project. Factors such as size, complexity, height, location, duration, climate, environment, personnel, culture, local laws, enforcement, attitude of main contractor to risk etc will all have an effect on how safety is "done". Also, the definition of a safe project is likely to mean different things to different people ("we only killed 3"; "1.5 million hours worked without a lost time accident"; "no prosecutions"; " our site medics were idle"; " the building was still standing when we handed it over"). Thus sadly I do not think that you are likely to get any guidance that may be realistic to your own situation.

Depends what you are doing doesn't it? I did a job a few years ago -20 men involved: our PPE budget alone was £450K

Jonesy, Lots of good debate here, but no answer yet. I had a proper answer for you, but I lost it when the site logged me out, I thought we had put a stop to that? That'll teach me to help the cat chase a mouse and then make a fresh coffee whilst composing a post. Short answer was 10% plus or minus 5% subject to risk. That's construction/demolition. I'm off now to repeat the exercise in word, because I also manage to prove that my department (HSQE) is under resourced! I'll post the calculations later, lets see how others think this number holds up. I am assuming that much of HS is just part of good management, my figures allow for PPE, welfare, direct costs in preparing risk assessments and control documentation, safety inspections and the like and the proportion of daily management that is expended in safety topics. Paul.