How Much Is Enough? What "Reasonably Practicable" Actually Requires
Every conversation about health and safety budgets reaches the same question, usually about twenty minutes in. We have done a lot. Have we done enough?
The law has an answer, and it is more precise than most people expect. Almost every duty that matters is qualified by the phrase "so far as is reasonably practicable", and that phrase is not a soft edge or a get-out. It is a defined test with a settled meaning, and understanding it is the difference between spending confidently and spending anxiously.
Six things the test actually requires.
1. It is a balance, not a budget
The core of the test is a comparison between two things: the risk on one side, and the sacrifice involved in reducing it on the other. Sacrifice means money, time and trouble taken together, not money alone.
Where the sacrifice is grossly disproportionate to the risk, the measure is not reasonably practicable and you are not required to take it. Where it is not grossly disproportionate, you are.
Two features of that formulation matter. The comparison is against the risk, meaning both the likelihood and the severity of what could happen, so a low-probability event with catastrophic consequences can justify substantial expenditure. And the disproportion has to be gross, not merely present. A measure that costs somewhat more than the risk seems to warrant is still required.
The duty in section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is qualified in exactly these terms.
2. What you can afford is not the test
The most common misunderstanding, and it runs in a direction that surprises people.
The assessment is objective. It asks what a reasonable employer in your position should do, not what your budget happens to allow this year. An organisation that cannot afford a necessary control has a problem with the activity, not a defence.
The corollary is uncomfortable for large organisations and worth stating plainly. A well-resourced international firm is held to a higher practical standard than a small local business, because more is reasonably practicable for it. Sophistication counts against you as well as for you: knowing about a risk, or being the kind of organisation that should have known, raises what is expected.
3. The burden of proof sits with you
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The provision that reframes this from a philosophical question into a practical one.
Under section 40 of the same Act, where a duty is qualified by reasonable practicability, it is for the accused to prove that it was not reasonably practicable to do more. The prosecution does not have to prove you could have done more. You have to prove you could not.
That reversal is unusual and it has a direct operational consequence: the analysis needs to exist in writing, before anything happens. An organisation that considered a control, decided the sacrifice was grossly disproportionate, and recorded that reasoning is in an entirely different position from one that reached the same conclusion informally and has nothing to show for it.
This is the strongest practical argument for documented risk assessment. Not that the document prevents harm, but that it is the evidence on which the defence depends.
4. The hierarchy comes before the balance
A sequencing point that organisations frequently invert.
The test is applied to control measures, and control measures are supposed to be considered in order: eliminate the hazard, then substitute, then engineer, then apply administrative controls, then personal protective equipment as the last resort. HSE's guidance on managing risk sets out the approach.
You do not get to reach for the cheapest option and then argue that anything better was disproportionate. The question is asked at each level in turn, which means an organisation that jumped straight to a policy and a briefing has not shown that elimination or engineering was disproportionate. It has simply not asked.
5. Custom and practice is evidence, not an answer
What everyone else in your sector does is relevant and it is not determinative.
Industry norms are evidence of what is feasible and what is expected, which is why sector guidance and recognised standards carry weight. But a practice can be common and still fall short, particularly in sectors where the risks are organisational rather than physical and everyone has evolved similar blind spots.
The tell is when the justification for a position is that nobody else does it either. That is an argument about custom, not about proportionality, and it does not answer the question the test asks. HSE's framework for managing health and safety is a reasonable reference for what a competent approach looks like.
6. The phrase does not travel unchanged
The point that catches international groups, and it is subtler than a translation problem.
Several jurisdictions use the same or similar language and give it their own content. Australia's model work health and safety legislation defines "reasonably practicable" expressly, listing the matters to be weighed, including the likelihood and degree of harm, what the person knows or ought reasonably to know about the hazard and ways of eliminating or minimising it, the availability and suitability of those ways, and the cost, with cost considered last and only in terms of gross disproportion. The Commonwealth version of the model text sets this out.
Elsewhere in Asia Pacific the phrasing varies again, and across continental Europe the framing is different in kind rather than in wording: the obligation is typically expressed through prescribed documents, appointments and processes rather than through a proportionality test. A German entity satisfies its duty by producing a documented assessment and appointing the required specialists, not by demonstrating that further measures would have been grossly disproportionate.
So a group standard built entirely around the British test will feel unanchored in half your jurisdictions, and a group that assumes proportionality reasoning will be accepted in a country that expects a prescribed form is in for a surprise.
Applying the test in practice
| Question | Weak answer | Answer that works | |---|---|---| | How much is enough? | As much as the budget allows | Until further measures would be grossly disproportionate to the risk | | Who decides? | Us, internally | An objective standard, judged after the event | | Does our size matter? | Smaller means less expected | Larger means more expected | | Who proves it? | The regulator proves we fell short | We prove more was not reasonably practicable | | In what order? | Cheapest workable control | Elimination first, PPE last | | Is industry practice enough? | Everyone does it this way | Evidence of feasibility, not a defence | | Does it apply abroad? | Same test everywhere | Defined differently, or replaced entirely |
The row that changes behaviour is the fourth. Once an organisation internalises that it carries the burden, documentation stops being administrative and starts being the thing that protects it.
What this means for how you spend
Three practical conclusions for anyone setting a budget.
Spend on the analysis first. The reasoning is the asset, because it is what you produce when asked. Regular health and safety audits generate exactly that record, which is why they are worth more than their findings alone.
Do not optimise for the cheapest defensible position. The test is applied after an event, by people who know what happened, and gross disproportion is a high bar to clear retrospectively.
Keep the record retrievable. A decision taken four years ago by someone who has left, recorded in an email thread nobody can find, is not evidence. Holding assessments, decisions and actions in one place across every entity is where health and safety consultants and software are worth more together than either alone.
Where Arinite fits
Arinite's job is largely to answer the question this article poses, in writing, for organisations that need to know where the line is. We support 1,500+ businesses across 50+ countries and protect 100,000+ employees, with 95%+ client retention over 15+ years. Our health and safety consultants work extensively with finance and banking, legal and IT and software organisations, where the risks are organisational and the temptation to conclude that little is required is strongest.
Where a group operates internationally, our global health and safety consultants establish which entities apply a proportionality test and which require a prescribed form, and our international health and safety consultants keep that current. If you have been asking whether you have done enough and answering it informally, a free gap analysis will give you a documented answer instead.
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Arinite Health & Safety Consultants
Health & Safety Expert at Arinite
