A Safety Case Report Format: Helping people to understand your safety case

This book provides a generic format for a Safety Case Report. The size and complexity of a safety case are usually such that it is not easy to deliver, and difficult to understand. Consequently, it is common practice to produce a report that presents the key parts of the safety case, and which can be more easily delivered and understood. It is this ‘Safety Case Report’ that is the subject of this book. The book is intended for anyone who is responsible for justifying and communicating a safety case to other parties. Those requiring such assurances will also find it instructive. As well as being useful where guidance does not exist, it is also likely to suggest improvements to existing procedures and guidelines. The report format offered in this book has been designed to help convey the arguments and evidence of a safety case to a diverse audience in an accessible form, and was developed to satisfy what the authors believe is logically expected from a complete Safety Case Report. This was informed by the comprehensive and generic method for assessing safety cases, previously written by the authors (CAP 1801). Hence, the format provides a generically applicable basis that can be tailored for a specific industry sector or project. The format has been made to cover a wide range of scenarios for safety cases by addressing one of the most complex, a change that is made in several stages to an existing system that is providing one or more services. The book has three major parts: Background concepts, which helps the reader to understand Safety Case Reports and the concepts that influenced the proposed report format, and discusses practical issues associated with current practice Using the Safety Case Report format, which addresses the task of preparing the SC Report Specification of the Safety Case Report format, which provides a detailed specification and guidance on the presentation and contents of an SC Report In the third part, each section of the report format is described in terms of ‘what the section is about’ and ‘why it is needed’. This is followed by detailed recommendations for the content that should be provided in that section of the report, and any additional relevant guidance to assist the report authors. The format also describes the extent of the extract of the safety case that is expected to be included in the report, either quoted directly or précised. Whilst this book refers to safety only, the report format could be adapted to treat other types of harm. About the authors: Andrew Eaton was a software engineer in the defence sector before working for the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s Safety Regulation Group for 26 years as a safety assurance expert. He developed CAP 670 part B SW01 regulatory requirements for safety related software, and co-authored CAP 1801 ‘The assessment of change safety cases’ with Stephen Barker. He represented the UK and specifically the Air Traffic Management sector at BSI, CEN, CENELEC, ETSI, and EUROCAE, and on the EASA rule making working groups for (EU) 2017/373. He was a member of the Independent Safety Assurance (ISA) Working Group, and holds an MSc in Safety Critical Systems Engineering from the University of York. Stephen Barker was a safety assessor for 21 years at the CAA's Safety Regulation Group, overseeing the safety of UK air traffic service systems. Prior to the CAA, Stephen worked mainly in the defence, automotive and rail industries and was also involved in DTI and European funded R&D projects including CASCADE, trained as a TickIT and SPICE auditor, and trialled part of the CASS assessment scheme for IEC 61508. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath. He was a Chartered Engineer, and a member of the Safety and Reliability Society until retirement.