UPDATE: Sep '14: The draft document discussed at the seminar, on Assessment of Safety-Related Compliance Claims, is now available on the SCSC website.



On 5 December 2013, the Independent Safety Assurance Working Group organised a successful seminar on the reuse of safety arguments and evidence, in collaboration with the Safety Critical Systems Club.  The theme of the day was "Transferable Safety".  Can a system or component that has been approved for use in one context legitimately be claimed to be safe in another?  There are obvious benefits if it can: avoiding the time and cost of repeating certification processes or generating new safety evidence.  But is this just a pipe dream, or can safety arguments legitimately be transferred from one regulator to another, or even from one industry to another?



Speakers included representatives from industry, regulators, consultancy and academia.  Their talks covered subjects such as how regulators can work together to trust each others' approvals, the challenges and expectations for safety case reuse, and some of the work being done to try to modularise and standardise safety case representations, to make them more suitable for reuse.



An afternoon workshop session looked at the issues that an Independent Safety Assessor would have to consider when deciding whether to trust a Safety-Related Compliance Claim such as a certificate at face value, or whether to request further evidence.  This was based around draft guidance being produced by the ISA Working Group.  Feedback from the seminar will help inform the development of the Guidance, which will be made available as a Factfile on the IET website.



Presentation slides from the event are available on the ISA Working Group website.



The draft document discussed at the seminar, on Assessment of Safety-Related Compliance Claims, is now available on the SCSC website.