As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP)

Do your Senior Leaders, Managers and Supervisors really understand the concept of As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP)? Do many of our safety professionals understand the concepts of Reasonably Practicable and Practicable? OH&S Code in Alberta states "when reasonably practicable employers must use engineering controls. One credible description is: Reasonably practicable has been described by the Labour Program (Canada) as taking precautions that are not only possible, but that are also suitable or rational, given the particular situation. Determining what should be done is usually done on a case by case basis. My impression from many discussions I have is that we look predominately to Administration and PPE. There tends always to be a slight focus on PPE.

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During my HSE education in UK it was explained as: ‘Reasonably practicable’ is a narrower term than ‘physically possible’ … a computation must be made by the owner in which the quantum of risk is placed on one scale and the sacrifice involved in the measures necessary for averting the risk (whether in money, time or trouble) is placed in the other, and that, if it be shown that there is a gross disproportion between them – the risk being insignificant in relation to the sacrifice – the defendants discharge the onus on them.

In essence, making sure a risk has been reduced ALARP is about weighing the risk against the sacrifice needed to further reduce it. The decision is weighted in favour of health and safety because the presumption is that the duty-holder should implement the risk reduction measure. To avoid having to make this sacrifice, the duty-holder must be able to show that it would be grossly disproportionate to the benefits of risk reduction that would be achieved. Thus, the process is not one of balancing the costs and benefits of measures but, rather, of adopting measures except where they are ruled out because they involve grossly disproportionate sacrifices.

A little long winded but when backed by examples and case law the picture is very clear.

The UK case law that sets this precedent is Edwards v NCB 1948 which is a very interesting read.

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