Hi all feeling lazy, can anyone point me to the HSE definition of "Significant" in relation to risk? regards

Me too

significant = something more than trivial.

I gave up trying to define these things years ago. 'Adequate', 'suitable', sufficient'. It's so subjective. I just keep going until I stop feeling 'niggling doubt'.

What is absolutely and sadly certain is that a claimant solicitor will have a very different opinion to a safety professional.

a recent example which i came across is the JCB operators manual. It has obviously been written by a risk averse lawyer! Every action in lifting with the back hoe has a warning triangle and a " recommendation" that loads should be lifted no more than 25-50mm from the ground, a guide line attached etc" The fact that the machine is designed to lift items great than an inch or two above the ground seems to have been lost. When I gave my opinion to an incident where the driver completely ignored the fact he had chains to lift small items of plant and not manually handle them into the bucket, where he slipped because he hadn't lowered the bucket fully, the manual was quoted by the lawyers despite a relevant RA and MS to carry out the operation. The world has gone crazy!

Ah, but lawyers love to prevaricate over semantics. Indeed, I went to a seminar on corporate manslaughter a few years ago given by an eminent barrister, all I recall from the event is him saying 'in the Act there is no definition of blah, blah,' and 'we will have to wait and see how that turns out.' How very enlightening!

We contacted the HSE many years ago and asked them this very question. Their reply..... Anything that is not insignificant. Well think about it. It was the wrong question really. What we were after were examples of what significant looked like. They couldn't give us that because they didn't know our business. Significant is a relative term; relative to you and what you do. Significant to bomb disposal unit or public order policing would be different to a small corner grocer. You can define one by defining the other. In terms of risk assessment (no not going to get into what that is) we determine significant RISK as being anything that would be assigned a score of either low medium or high. If you can't assign a value because there are no significant finding, it would be insignificant risk. Low is NOT insignificant. However, in terms of defining which tasks we risk assess and in what order we'd do it, we look at the significance of the task. Is it core - something that if we stopped would prevent us from operating? Or, is it something that supports or enables a core task to be undertaken, without which we would eventually stop. Or is it pretty miscellaneous that we do, but could actually stop now with little consequence. So, the term significant can be used in different circumstances, but, the HSE were right. It's simply the opposite of insignificant. Jericho

From the HSE website: "What are significant risks? Risks, which are significant, are those that are not trivial in nature and are capable of creating a real risk to health and safety which any reasonable person would appreciate and would take steps to guard against. What can be considered as "insignificant" will vary from site to site and activity to activity depending on specific circumstances. However, we have highlighted some areas which can be considered as insignificant through our Myth of the Month e.g. conkers, toothpicks, hanging baskets etc." http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/faq.htm