THE CERTIFYING AUTHORITY - AFTER CULLEN

The independence of the certifying authorities (CA) puts them in a unique position to carry out certification and verification work aimed at providing credible proof of compliance with statutory regulations. The certifying authorities are accustomed to providing such services under different legal frameworks, in many countries. It is assumed that the offshore industry in the UK will still need the resources, and the independence, of the certifying authorities to provide proof of compliance with new safety regulations. Such certification or verification services could be carried out directly for the operator of the installation, or, in special cases, on behalf of the regulatory body. It is reasonable to believe that there will be a need for such services since it may be unrealistic to expect that the regulatory body will have sufficient capacity to cover all aspects of the control function with its own resources. Examples of future verification tasks are: 1. review of safety cases to check compliance with defined acceptance criteria; 2. review of design and construction of compliance with new goal setting regulations (this is professionally more demanding than verification against the current prescriptive regulations); 3. review/audits of operator's safety management systems to ensure they address the safety critical issues identified through the relevant safety case. Over the next few years, however, the CAs will be busy maintaining the certificates for some 300 installations in British waters, in accordance with the 'old' certification scheme. Such certification is required until new legislation is written and tested, which may take 4-5 years.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • WEMT '91, Intl Conf Offshore Operations Post Piper Alpha; 6-8 Feb 1991; London U.K. Sponsored by Inst Marine Engrs & RINA Joint Offshore Group. Pprs. Publ by Marine Management (Holdings) Ltd., ISBN 0-907206-39-5. Paper 3, p 27 [3 p]
• Authors:
  • Saebo, E
• Publication Date: 1991

Language

• English

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Certification; Offshore construction; Regulations
• Old TRIS Terms: Platform safety
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Law; Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00702112
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: British Maritime Technology
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 14 1995 12:00AM