Specialist services
DSEAR assessments
Understand where your risks are and build a proportionate action plan for your site.
- Typical engagement
- 1 to 3 weeks
- Where it applies
- Anywhere dangerous substances are stored or handled
- You receive
- A DSEAR risk assessment and action plan
- Working to
- DSEAR 2002 · ACOP L138
A proportionate assessment of your dangerous substances
DSEAR asks you to know what dangerous substances are on your site, to understand how they could ignite, and to control that risk so far as is reasonably practicable. It is a duty on the employer, and the assessment is the record that the duty has been discharged. Nothing about it requires a document the length of a phone book.
The work starts with the substances themselves: what is here, in what quantity, with what flash point, and in what condition it is handled. From there we look at the processes that bring energy near them, review the ignition sources, and test whether the controls you already have are doing what you believe they are doing.
The assessment is not the same thing as zone classification, and it is not replaced by it. Classification tells you where an explosive atmosphere may occur; the assessment tells you what to do about it. The two feed each other: zone drawings are an input, and the assessment often sends work back the other way when a control turns out to depend on an extent nobody has checked in years.
It also links forward to inspection. A control you rely on has to be maintained, and Regulation 6 says so. Where an assessment rests on the integrity of Ex equipment, the inspection programme is part of the answer, not a separate conversation.
What the assessment considers
- Substance inventory and properties
- Process conditions and release potential
- Ignition source review
- Existing controls and their adequacy
- Emergency arrangements
- The action plan
How the work runs
From inventory to a plan with owners.
Inventory
What is on site, in what quantity and what condition, with the safety data that goes with it.
Assess
Where an explosive atmosphere can form, what could ignite it, and whether the existing controls hold.
Agree actions
A working session with your team to rank the actions and put a name and a date against each one.
Document
A written assessment you can hand to an inspector, with the review triggers stated.
Your questions, answered.
No, though they are often confused. Classification is a technical study that says where an explosive atmosphere may be present and how far it extends. The DSEAR assessment is broader: it covers every dangerous substance, every ignition source including the non-electrical ones, the adequacy of your controls, and your emergency arrangements. Classification is an input to the assessment. A site can hold perfectly good zone drawings and still have no DSEAR assessment.
The regulation says the assessment must be kept up to date rather than naming an interval. In practice we recommend reviewing it every two to three years, and immediately on any material change: a new substance, a change in quantity or process conditions, a plant modification, a change to the ventilation, or an incident or near miss. We issue the trigger list with the assessment so the decision is not left to judgement.
Fewer people than you might think, but the right ones. We need someone who knows the process as it actually runs, someone who knows the maintenance history, and whoever owns the outcome — usually the SHE or engineering manager. Expect a half-day walk-round and a couple of hours in the action-planning session. Operators are worth ten minutes each; they know where the vapour actually goes.