I have been looking at guidance on the tolerability of risk, ie decision making about when your risk has been reduced low enough / as low as practicable / as low as possible etc. In particular, I'm being asked to comment on whether our methods are sufficiently robust. Putting it bluntly, would simply saying "well I thought about it, and I though there was no significant risk" hold water in court?

There's the HSE document 'reducing risks protecting people' that discusses these issues, but I'm quite conscious that that document is fifteen years old now. It seems to be current (it's still on the HSE web site - at http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/r2p2.htm), but it seems to me there have been quite a lot of relevant regulatory changes in that period, and even more blustering about risk, with the HSE challenge panel and red tape blitzes, and various government reports and so on which could influence these matters.

So, does anyone know of any more up-to-date or more relevant publication? Is 'reducing risks protecting people' still state-of-the-art for teh topic, or is tehre something newer?

Agree with imwaldra - but the corporate risk spectrum has widened since we just used 'people killed' in a funnel. CSR and aspects of brand value might also need to figure in todays tolerance levels (consider Blue Water Horizon).

We now have more sophisticated ways of determining tolerability in several dimensions using a number of value headings and a corporate risk register approach which might be more use and understood by the executive and potential investors.

The links below expand upon what R2P2 covers regarding "ALARP"

ALARP "at a glance" i.e. ALARP explained
http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/alarpglance.htm

This guide has been produced to explain the concept of "reasonably practicable" in a simple way for HSE staff and incorporates guidance currently held on HSE's website. It's aimed mainly at staff new to HSE and those new to decision making.




There is a suite of expert guidance from HSE:-
http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/expert.htm

"This page sets out the approach that we ourselves use to evaluate risks. We are showing it in the interests of openness and because we know it is useful to some health and safety professionals and academics. But it is not something we would expect the average manager to look at"

ALARP suite of guidance
This is guidance to HSE’s own staff about what they should expect to see in dutyholders’ demonstrations that the risk has been reduced ‘as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)’; in those situations where the work activity is unusual (i.e. good practice is not yet established) or where there is a risk of a disaster (e.g. petrochemical and nuclear installations).

Thanks all, very useful. At least I know I'm not reading old guidance, and the links to other supporting documents are useful as well.

Most of the time previously we have used a relatively low-tech qualitative process for assessing risk, but we're becoming involved with a higher risk enterprise and more formalised methods. I've occasionally brushed up against nuclear and petrochem worlds with more formalised methods in the past, but I'm reviewing such things again now for something else that we're getting involved in.