Risk management and consumer safety

Risk assessment and risk management techniques are being developed in many fields as an aid to safety investment decision making. Already these techniques are having impacts upon aspects of consumer safety which overlap with other sectors where safety is important and where these methods are being applied. Recent examples where this has happened range from public transportation to the safety of children's playgrounds. This paper reports on progress in risk management in some of these sectors. Key elements include the notion of 'acceptabl' and 'tolerabl' risk, the optimisation of safety according to principles known as ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) or ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable), and the use of quantitative methods such as cost-benefit analysis as an aid to decision making. Attention is drawn to a number of factors which consumer safety practitioners may wish to consider should it be decided to follow the trend towards a risk-based approach to the management of consumer safety.