Strictly, BS OHSAS 18001 does not have a scoring system, therefore the auditor does not have a choice of scoring it and non conformance reports for observations and minor / major non conformances are issued. Other audit systems do have scoring , the complexity varies such as ISRS, RCMS, Exxon-Mobil's internal OIMS, BSC 5 star etc However, nothing prevents you from "risk assessing" the non conformance reports for observations and minor / major non conformances for the purpose of prioritization of actions.

Ian, chasing compliance with an individual piece of legislation or company rule and scoring your performance against it is not the answer. OHSAS 18001 is the management system standard, not a scoring method. It requires you to be able to understand and manage your risks and compliance is simply one aspect of that with no more importance than any other in the standard. Let's get back to what your OH&S (and possibly environmental) management system needs to deliver: 1) Identification of hazards, understanding risks and managing those risks on the range from corporate to personal to risks to the public. 2) understanding and delivering compliance needs - and within this I include legal compliance, codes of practice, industry norms and internal company rules. 3) reduce your impact - i.e. reduce the number of people injured, how severely they are injured and the situations that could lead to them being injured. If you have a well designed management system it will deliver those things and you will be compliant amongst other things. As part of the standard you should be carrying out internal audits of your management system. These should be identifying underlying weaknesses in that management system, and only by rectifying those underlying weaknesses will you be able to ensure that you take both corrective and long term preventive action, and that is what will prevent your system degrading again. So in this case, I agree with your boss. I have worked in and with companies who do score internal audits and it rapidly becomes a numbers game and instills the wrong behaviours in the organisation. In my opinion, scoring is OK for a workplace inspection, in which the scores can feed into monitoring and measurement tools, which can then inform you as to where you may wish to spend some of your efforts on internal audit of your management system. Remember delivery of the three objectives above is not achieved by having copious quantities of paperwork and instructions, but by the workforce at the sharp end. If they do not understand what they are required to do and why, and if you do not give them the tools to achieve it, hen you are banging your head against a brick wall. Every audit should start in the workplace and looking at the outcomes you are actually achieving, that will speak volumes regardless of your level of compliance on paper.