The morality and economics of safety in defence procurement

Abstract

Ministry of Defence policy is to conform as closely as possible to UK health and safety legislation in all its operations. We consider the implications of the law and the guidance provided by the Health and Safety Executive for the arguments we need to make for the safety of defence procurements, and extract four general principles to help in answering the questions that arise when considering the safety of systems with complex behaviour. One of these principles is analysed further to identify how case law and the guidance interpret the requirement for risks to be reduced so far as is reasonably practicable. We then apply the principles to answer some questions that have arisen in our work as Independent Safety Auditors, including the limits to the tolerability of risk to armed forces personnel and civilians in wartime, and the acceptability of the transfer of risk from one group to another when controls on risk are introduced. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009.