Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 - Guidance

• Operations notice: 71
• Issue date: May 2006

Introduction

This notice provides information on the guidance published by HSE in support of the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 which came into force on 6 April.

Background

Key changes introduced by the 2005 Regulations include:

• The requirement for duty holders to send an early design notification to HSE, instead of a design safety case, when establishing a new production installation;
• Duty holders are required to carry out a thorough and fundamental review of their safety cases at least every five years, or as directed by HSE;
• The present requirement to re-submit safety cases every three years has been removed (inspectors will be checking to see that safety cases are being kept up to date through inspection);
• New duties require licensees to ensure anyone they appoint as an operator is capable of fulfilling their legal responsibilities for safety;
• If, in HSE's opinion, the operator appointed by the licensee is unable to discharge the management and control functions, the duty to submit the safety case and other related duties will revert to the licensee;
• There are transitional arrangements for combined operations. Existing safety cases will need to be revised to include generic particulars on combined operations and accepted by HSE by 6 October 2007. Once accepted the requirement for submitting combined operations safety cases to HSE will be replaced by notifications of combined operations;
• The Offshore Installations (Safety Representatives and Safety Committees) Regulations 1989 have been amended to extend consultation with safety representatives to reviewing and revising a safety case, as well as preparing one.
• Duty holders will need to convert their existing safety cases to the new arrangements by 5 April 2009. However, these revisions will not require HSE acceptance.

Published guidance

A guide to the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 L30 Third edition HSE Books 2006 ISBN 0 7176 6148 9

Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 Regulation 12: Demonstrating Compliance with the relevant statutory provision Offshore Information Sheet 2/2006 HSE website 2006

Guidance on risk assessment for offshore installations Offshore Information Sheet 3/2006 HSE website 2006

Assessment Principles for Offshore Safety Cases (APOSC) HSE website 2006

Revising an existing safety case to comply with the 2005 safety case regulations Operations Notice 69 HSE website 2006

Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 - Combined operations: What particulars, relating to a combined operation, should be included in the safety case for an installation? Operations Notice 70 HSE website 2006

The following guidance for HSE inspectors is also available from our website

Guidance for the topic assessment of the major accident hazard aspects of safety cases (GASCET)

The Safety Case Handling and Assessment Manual (SCHAM) is currently under review and will be republished shortly.

Further information

Any queries relating to this notice should be addressed to:

Health and Safety Executive
Hazardous Installations Directorate
Offshore Division
Lord Cullen House
Fraser Place
Aberdeen AB25 3UB

Tel: 01224 252500
Fax: 01224 252615

This guidance is issued by the Health and Safety Executive. Following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law. Health and safety inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to this guidance as illustrating good practice.