The assessment team that reviews COMAH safety reports considers how human factors have been addressed in the report. HSE expects that the parts that people play in protection, prevention, potential initiation, and recovery from major accidents to be addressed with the same degree of rigour that we traditionally expect for process and engineering issues.

The consideration of human factors potentially affects all disciplines. The criteria in Section 10, 11 and Section 12 of the Safety Report Assessment Manual (SRAM) include outline guidance on areas where human factors may be an issue relevant to specific disciplines. Additionally, specific guidance on human factors is covered in a stand-alone Appendix 4 in Section 12 in respect of technical measures and is available for use by all assessors during assessment.

• Guidance on human factors for safety report assessors