Comparison of HSG 65 with other key management ‘standards’
This document outlines and compares HSE’s popular and successful publication ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’ (HSG 65) with other key management "standards" publications. These are:
- BS 8800:2004 (Health and Safety Management Guidance Standard)
- BS EN ISO 9001:2000, (Quality Management standard)
- BS EN ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental Management standard)
- BS OHSAS 18001:2007 (Occupational Health and Safety Management standard)
- ILO OSH: 2001 (Guidelines on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems)
- CIA Responsible Care Management System Framework
The documents have different purposes, contents and scopes but there is a high degree of similarity in their content at high level – albeit the order in which the elements are covered, the manner in which these are broken down and the nomenclature used are not always the same. This reflects the common heritage and principles of all the documents, which are based on the ‘plan/do/check/act’ model of quality management; sometimes referred to as the management ‘control loop’. Apart from the quality management standard (which contains little or nothing on identifying the existing state of affairs or assessing risks), the route taken by all the documents is, in essence, for organizations to:
- identify the issues that need to be addressed,
- set the direction/standards to be achieved,
- plan what needs to be done,
- organise who is going to do it,
- equip them to do so,
- do it,
- check it has been done,
- check that it worked and
- learn from/feedback lessons from this exercise to (continually) improve (the process and outcomes).
The main characteristics of the documents are:
- HSG 65 aims to provide guidance and advice on good practice in health and safety management. First published in 1991 and revised in 1997 it explains how great the human and organizational losses can be when health and safety risks are not properly controlled. It promotes effective control through actively managing health and safety systematically (within the context of managing the whole business) and raises the importance of related issues including leadership, employee involvement and other aspects that are often grouped under the heading of health and safety “culture”. HSG 65 is not an approved code of practice and does not provide detailed requirements for compliance with the legal requirements that which cover management issues (HSW 74 section 2, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and the “permissioning” Regulations in sectors such as Railways, Offshore and COMAH), although it does state that following the guidance will “normally be … enough to secure compliance with the law”. HSG 65 is well known for describing the systematic “POPMAR” (policy, organization, planning and implementing, measuring, auditing, reviewing) model for managing health and safety.
- BS 8800:2004 is a Guidance standard which has the same aims as HSG 65. The 2004 edition was devised with substantial input from HSE and is based on the structure of HSG 65. It is currently (2007-8) being reviewed by BSI to take account of the 2007 revision of OHSAS 18001 (and an anticipated review of HSE’s policy and strategy on successful health and safety management) and is likely to be renamed BS OHSAS 18004: 2008. A shorter “lite” version is also being considered, to address the needs of less complex businesses.
- BS EN ISO 9001:2000, BS EN ISO 14001:2004 and BS-OHSAS 18001:2007 are certifiable ‘standards’, (see later note), the purpose of which is to help organizations create management systems and to demonstrate to their stakeholders that the organizations concerned have introduced management systems which have a required characteristics.
Compliance with certifiable standards is demonstrated through audit by a certifying body, which itself should be accredited by the UK Accreditation Service, (UKAS). The Environment Agency takes account of operators’ management systems in its OPRA environmental risk rating scheme, giving operators credit for having environmental management systems that are certified as meeting BS 14001 standards. A recent study has suggested positive correlations between certified implementation of BS14001 and good environmental performance, but apparently only where the audit and certification is by an accredited certifying body.
- BS EN ISO 9001:2000 is a quality management system standard, which relates to the quality of the product or service being provided. This does not extend to the health and safety of the processes used to manufacture or deliver the product or service. ISO 9001 is essentially about process and has no element requiring risk assessment.
- BS EN ISO 14001:2004 is an environmental management system standard. Environmental control standards/issues tend to be a little less complex than those associated with health and safety which means environmental management can be more amenable to the systems approach. The main differences in scope of the standard relative to HSG 65 are that there is little on risk assessment (in 4.3.1) and no specific requirements for employee involvement.
- BS OHSAS 18001:2007 is a health and safety management system standard. Originally produced in 1999, it was substantially revised in 2007 with substantial input from HSE and aligns quite closely with HSG 65 and BS 8800. It also shows close alignment with BS EN ISO 14001:2004, quite close alignment with ILO OSH 2001 and some alignment with ANSI Z10, a recent American National standard for health and safety management. Although published in the UK by BSI and subject to the usual consultation process in its development, OHSAS 18001 was also subject to separate international negotiation and agreement. It affords a reasonable model on which to base a systematic approach to managing health and safety within a whole business context but does not provide guidance on how to build or apply it and incorporates relatively few aspects of health and safety culture. Some guidance on all these aspects is, however, contained in the accompanying publication BSI-OHSAS 18002:2000, which is also being updated and expanded to take account of the new edition of 18001.
- ILO OSH: 2001 aligns closely with HSG 65 and BS 8800:2004 but has greater emphasis on employee involvement – reflecting the European emphasis on worker involvement and the tri-partite nature of its development.
- ‘Responsible Care’ is a programme sponsored by the Chemical Industries Association (CIA). It aims to promote good management of health and safety, environment and some aspects of quality in the chemical industry for the purposes of demonstrating good performance to stakeholders. The Responsible Care Management System Framework provides a well-structured, sector-specific model on which to base a systematic approach to managing health and safety in the chemical process industry. It draws on and cross-references earlier editions of the other standards outlined above.
This simple picture may be complicated where organizations have sought to integrate the requirements of one or more of the above (or other) standards into a single system.