Safety Report Assessment Guide: Chemical warehouses

Introduction

The purpose of HSE's assessment of a safety report against the criteria in the SRAM, is to come to a conclusion on whether the requirements and demonstrations in Schedule 4 Part 1 have been met. The extent of the information required for each demonstration to be made will depend on the level of proportionality considerations and the type of safety report required by COMAH Regs. 7 or 8. The different report types include: the initial report for existing establishments, pre-construction (PCSR), pre-operation (POSR), modification and updated reports.

The predictive criteria are designed to help the Assessor make consistent professional judgements about whether the demonstrations in a safety report are adequate. Such demonstrations need to be based on a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. The criteria are necessarily quite general, but sufficiently broad in nature to cover the various types of installation, the range of hazards to be encountered, and the types of risk assessment that might be employed.

The purpose of this document is to describe how Assessors should test whether the criteria that applies to the predictive aspects of COMAH safety reports have been met. It provides an interpretation of the criteria based on useful examples. The information supplements rather than supplants that in the safety report assessment manual.

The initial sections provide important background information, particularly on ALARP decisions and the application of the proportionality principle to the assessment of safety reports.

PM/Technical/09: HID - Safety report assessment guide: Chemical Warehouses