How do you and your organization define and practice the concepts of "acceptable risk" and "as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)?"

and if its a for real question then it depends............

IMHO all you can do is clearly document why you reached your conclusion. As categorically if it goes pear shaped this will be tested and regardless of what HSE or any regulator puts on their website, societal pressure is to look at enforcement

I saw a summary of the recently revised and much thinner guidance for schools and then remembered a crown court case following a fatality involving a school party caving in Yorkshire - HSE lost the case

My point is that Tolerability of Risk and SFARP has not really changed at all but it takes a brave regulator not to " allow the courts" to take the decision - others may argue that is the purpose of the legal system to take the decision away from an individual and place the responsibility on a group of 12 normal citizens. And again I would say that depends.....

Kind regards

Bruce

To say a risk is 'Tolerable' is acceptable - otherwise money/time/effort will be expended in trying to mitigate every risk/hazard whether it is reasonably forseeable or not.

Haven't we heard this somewhere before ..... like HASWA!!

The law does not require 100% safety. Sadly even with the best of efforts people will die at work/as a result of work activities.

So what is the cost of a life? That is for a Court and society to accept/define.

To endorse 100% safety / risk mitigation and you end up with some of the stupid decisions that are often seen in the press, slating h&s experts and so often discussed on this forum.

To take silly example - even in a well designed building with multiple floors, its is still foreseeable that a defect may develop and someone falls down a flight of stairs and is seriously injured or killed.

It may happen only every 100yrs.

However it is still possible to prevent this type of accident by designing all building to be on a ground floor level - but is this what society wants....

So what is your acceptable and Tolerable risk level that society will accept??

Answers on a postcard ....

May I add another element for confusion? COSHH requires the exposure to a substance hazardous to health to be eliminated so far as is reasonable practicable or "where this is not possible, adequately controlled". However, nowhere is what is meant by adequately controlled defined. In earlier versions of COSHH it was defined as: "Controlled to a standard such that nearly all the population could be exposed repeatedly without adverse effect to health"
"Nearly all, repeatedly, adverse effect to health" - what do these mean?
In the latest version even this doubtful definition has been omitted.

Given that according to the EU Agency for Safety and Health at Work measuring the effect of skin exposure is not possible how could we determine 'adequately controlled' anyway?

“However, there is no scientific method of measuring the results of the body’s exposure to risk through dermal contact. Consequently no dermal exposure standards have been set.” - Occupational skin diseases and dermal exposure in the European Union (EU-25):policy and practice overview - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

Chris

Some good points made here but the question was how do YOU define the phrases. And I think that is the key; DO you define these in your organisations? We do. In our risk management documentation we set out what we mean by tolerable and acceptable. Now others may disagree with those definitions and that's fine, but they are ours. To us, tolerable is something to be put up with for now. It absolutely does not mean 'that's it, stop looking' but we are also very clear that chasing rainbows is not what what we are about. The concept of continuous improvement is fine until you reach where you want to be. Typically that point is ALARP. For some activities ALARP may actually be high risk, so we have to tolerate that until something comes along that we can apply. To accept that in our view would simply be to stop looking. However, that must be inked to the level of risk. High risk would be tolerated after consideration and there'd be a management plan in place. Medium risk stuff may be slightly harder to shift and it's entirely possible that no further gains may be possible. But still we'd tolerate although me may not look quite as hard into the future. Once we reach low risk activities, we have a slightly different view. Locally the managers must have them in mind but are unlikely to be asked to do more than the usual periodic management of them. As a business, low risk activities would be pretty much accepted as part of normal operations. As to insignificant risk - well, that's the point - it's insignificant. So setting definitions for phrases like tolerability, for us, are actually set not only against the levels of risk, but the levels of the business too. This means that only the important stuff is reported to the people who need to act and they are not inundated with trivia (at their level) This has allowed us to:
Identify significant risk
Act upon it in priority order
Outline residual (what's left)
Manage accordingly in line with what's tolerable for us

We (all of us) are expected to manage our business appropriately and rather then looking outwards for others' definitions and examples, we need to set our own boundaries and be confident with them. We actually put all of this into a summary document that managers can pass to enforcement officers when they visit. Sure they can have policies and whatnot too, but a single simple outline of why we do what we do, like we do, has gone down very well.

JJP - agree with what you are saying. What the public will tolerate or accept is sometimes very fickle. It all depends on how much 'outrage' they feel. Someone falls off a cliff, into a canal, off a station platform - well that's their fault. A child falls off a school stage - it's hilarious. Someone trips in a pothole and there is outrage. It's seldom linked to the level of risk, it's more about ownership of the hazard, perhaps. You can't set a definition of what is acceptable other than by examples where it either was or wasn't. Or you end up with something like 'Tolerable is that which the majority of people would not consider as being someone's fault other than their own' or something pointless like that.

Luckily (other than the courtroom) our definitions are not governed by the public's perceptions.

Jericho

Steve

I note your obvious dislike of tolerability but how does zero risk work?

Kind regards

Bruce

What we are talking about is appetite for risk. Some organisations are very tolerant of risk and are willing to spend money to take a risk right down; others are more willing to accept a certain level of risk. A simple example is we have had reports of a couples of slips/trips on the greasy flags (pavers) (it’s raining now in York). We are arranging to have the slabs cleaned and the question of where do we start was asked. The company line is “Do it nearest the entrance as this is were the visitors come in.” This means, that the appetite for risk in relation to our own staff, is greater than in relation to members of the public coming onto our site.
Can we achieve a zero level of risk? No, not unless we close down the site and all go home.

@steveeckersley But I would describe road risk as tolerable.
5 - 10 deaths a day clearly not good

But society 'tolerates' this for a change to drive a few miles an hour faster.... (ducks awaiting heavy shouting from people who like fast cars)

In industry such as COMAH I can't think of a better word? - I think you are confusing the term with SFARP in your example - see my link to the HSE document for a mathematical explanation!

'Tolerability' does not mean 'acceptability'.
Tolerability means you are prepared to live with a particular situation understanding the benefits it may give. It involves regularly reviewing the risk and applying new technologies as they arise, should they be appropriate.
Acceptability is that you leave it as as and do nothing.

Quite agree Peter - "nuclear power and all that" and from that span off IMHO the way that modern H and S thinking was meant to be as opposed to the risk avoidance situation that frequently we seem to be in.

Then WE as like it or not and despite the fact that perhaps some of us screamed and kicked against it WE the safety profession have allowed the concept to change. Whether it is HSE or Insurance or Safety Practioners driving it is really a cart / horse or chicken and egg situation but we are certainly a long way away from where I thought it was meant to be...........

I am not sure that we can go back now either as commercially we have created some very big and powerful monsters that will not allow the necessary changes as they make money from the current situation.

SFARP does allow a balance of cost and personally I always that the idea of cost benefit analysis for safety was not only necessary in society, but also what we as professionals were paid to do? It is obviously tough if its you or your loved ones but we do seem to live in a world where we get excited over using light eye protection and then ignore the fact that people are still using disc cutters without any or the wrong type of eye protection as an example.......