http://www.bsigroup.com/Documents/standards/guide-to-standards/BSI-Guide-to-standards-1-5-standards-types-BSI-UK-EN.pdf (2009)

[...]

It can take time to develop consensus standards and for the agreement to go through public review. For some users of standards, particularly those in fast-changing technology sectors, it may be more important to agree on a technical solution and publish it quickly before going through the checks and balances needed to become a British Standard. Therefore, BSI, CEN/CENELEC and ISO/IEC have developped a range of publications that are not formal standards, but allow publication earlier than if full consensus were to be achied. These publications are:

• Published document (PD)
• Private subscribed standard (PSS)
• PAS
• International publicly availabe specification (ISO/PAS)
• European or international workshop adreements (CWA/IWA/ITA)

[...]

The PAS initially was marketed as “Product Approval Specification”. Later it was renamed to “Publicly Available Specification”. That probably made that pseudo standard more marketable. Originally, the PAS was meant to cope quickly with technoloy progress. However, it also became a tool to create pseudo standards for controversial processes where employers didn’t like the need to find a consensus e.g. with employee organizations. Examples: BS PAS 1010:2010 (Code of practice for managing workplace psychosocial risks and stress, Britain) and DIN SPEC 91020 (Occupational health management, Germany). As for “Published Documents” (PD), the PD 2511:2010 adressing Human Aspects of Business Continuity is a fine example for questionable contributions to the CSR show business.

By the way: In all cases you have to pay lots of money for obtaining these papers. That doesn’t really foster a good public discussion of these “public” documents.

• https://www.google.com/search?q=”Publicly+Available+Specifications”+”occupational+health+and+safety”
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicly_Available_Specification
  

  According to a BSI document “Principles of PAS standardization” “The term PAS was originally an acronym derived from “publicly available specification”. However, not all PAS documents are structured as specifications and the term is now sufficiently well established not to require any further amplification.” However, early examples of PAS were actually titled “Product Approval Specification” as illustrated in the accompanying photograph showing part of PAS 003.

I got curious about how the players in the certification business manage to push “Publicly Available Specifications” (low quality & fast track pseudo standards) into the market for the certification of management systems for Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S). I think that the Britisch PAS 1010 and the German DIN SPEC 91020 are indecent tricks designed to avoid a consensual standard development. Employee organizations (unions) are not seriously given a voice.

BS PAS 1010:2011 ist eine britische PAS (Publicly Available Specification), die also ohne einen nachprüfbaren Konsens zwischen den Urhebern des Standards und der von dem Standard Betroffenen im Eilverfahren erstellt wurde. Und billig ist die Spezifikation auch nicht, deswegen habe ich sie nicht und kann sie hier auch nicht beurteilen.

• http://www.bsigroup.com/pas1010
• http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030213276
• http://www.shponline.co.uk/new-guidance-to-help-fill-stress-void/

Update 2015-12:

As with BS PAS 1010:2011, the German certification industry uses the DIN SPEC 91020 to introduce such a “standard light” to occupational health and saftey. On December 2015 the DAkkS accredits CABs who issue certificates for “health management”. Even though DIN SPEC 91020 is not a safety standard, I fear that it will misused for claims of certified enterprises to have a certified OH&S management.

 

Update 2014-10:

The PAS procedure is described here: http://www.spec.din.de/cmd?level=tpl-rubrik&menuid=81501&cmsareaid=81501&menurubricid=87633&cmsrubid=87633. But DIN changed the content of that page. Previously (2012-08-17), DIN clearly stated that requests to create a DIN SPEC for OHS would be rejected: “Eine Anfrage, die Aspekte des Arbeits-, Gesundheits-, Umwelt- und Brandschutzes enthält, wird vom DIN grundsätzlich abgelehnt.” However, DIN doesn’t mention that anymore (since mid 2013). Seemingly, the DIN wants to drive their SPEC-business ahead in the first place.

For the CWA procedure you still will find that warning.

For the PAS procedure, the Hamburg University offers the original version.

 

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DIN SPEC 91020 is a helpful Publicly Available Specification (PAS) for Occupational Health Management (OHM). However, the specification does not apply to Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S).

The DIN SPEC 91020 has been initiated by B·A·D, a private company operating in the occupational health market. Later a working group had been established (2012-05):

• 3cert GmbH (belongs to B·A·D)
• B.A.D Gesundheitsvorsorge und Sicherheitstechnik GmbH
• Berufsgenossenschaft für Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege (BGW)
• BSI Management Systems und Umweltgutachter Deutschland GmbH (BS OHSAS 18001)
• Bundesverband Betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement e. V. (BBGM)
• Deutsche Hochschule für Prävention und Gesundheitsmanagement GmbH und BSA-Akademie
• DQS GmbH Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Zertifizierung von Managementsystemen
• DSSV e. V.
• Arbeitgeberverband deutscher Fitness- und Gesundheits-Anlagen
• Eiba communication GmbH & Co. KG
• Fraunhofer Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation
• IKK Südwest
• Landesgesundheitsamt Baden-Württemberg im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart
• Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance GmbH
• proproduction Dr. Kaminski (see also a good presentation of DIN SPEC 91020 (in German))
• QualiCertAG
• TÜV NORD CERT GmbH
• Universität Bielefeld (see also SCOHS)
• Institut für Arbeitsmedizin und Sozialmedizin, Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf

 

In http://www.beuth.de/en/technical-rule/din-spec-91020/153182508, “Environmental protection, Occupational safety, Safety DIN-SPEC-91020″ is misleading. A DIN SPEC is a Publicly Available Specification. This is why DIN categorically rejects applications for DIN SPECs related to work safety. (“Eine Anfrage, die Aspekte des Arbeits-, Gesundheits-, Umwelt- und Brandschutzes enthält, wird vom DIN grundsätzlich abgelehnt.”)

Also, “management requirements such as quality, OHS and environmental protection” in http://www.din.de/cmd?level=tpl-artikel&menuid=49589&cmsareaid=49589&cmsrubid=56731&menurubricid=56731&cmstextid=170285&2&languageid=en is misleading, even though that page had been published by DIN. The DIN SPEC 91020 is not “OHS”. It is “OH” only. It does not have the same rank as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. For safety you rather want to use standards like OHSAS 18001 or ILO-OSH.

DIN claims: “DIN also saw to it that operational health management systems already on the market were taken into account in the new DIN SPEC 91020 and that all stakeholders in the field were involved in the development process.” This is quite wrong. Actually, the most important stakeholders had been ignored. Strangely, even though the standard is about the health of employees, representatives of employees were not involved in the development process.

 

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DIN lite

B·A·D’s clever promotion (German and English) of the DIN SPEC 91020: http://www.bad-gmbh.de/fileadmin/user_upload/BAD InForm 03/HTML/files/assets/basic-html/page11.html

… The major difference between OSH management systems and occupational health management is that the former covers risks at the workplace but OHM is generally about preserving or promoting employees’ health. …

At the first glance, preserving or promoting employees’ health sounds well intended. That was the old approach which too often also interferes with the employees’ private life. That is why the european guidelines on work safety took a different approach. In accordance with these guidelines, standards like OHSAS 18001 aim at preserving or promoting healthy workplaces.

 
http://www.bad-gmbh.de/fileadmin/user_upload/BAD InForm 03/HTML/files/assets/basic-html/page12.html

… Why a DIN SPEC?

Dr Andrea Fluthwedel commented that one of DIN’s goals was to ensure protection targets were met, including those in the fields of consumer protection, safety and environmental protection. “We work in cooperation with a whole range of interest groups, including political representatives, businesses, NGOs, users, religious institutions, trade unionists, social accident insurance institutions and testing bodies – essentially, anyone interested in standards. So you can imagine it’s not always easy to reach a consensus,” she said.

The first DIN SPECs came on the scene in the mid-1990s, with the aim of getting innovative products to market quickly. The process can take three years, from the application until the final document. As Dr Fluthwedel explained: “A DIN SPEC isn’t a standard, it’s a specification. …

Read this carefully. This means: “The goals of regular standards are to ensure protection targets were met, including those in the fields of consumer protection, safety and environmental protection. However, in case of a DIN SPEC some of the interest groups (e.g. trade unionists) can be neglected. That is why for a DIN SPEC, DIN explicitely excludes goals in the fields of consumer protection, safety and environmental protection. Consequently, DIN SPEC 91020 is not a safety standard!”

Interestingly, of all the relevant interest groups, the workers and their representatives had been excluded from working on this specification for the safety of workers. You can imagine that this makes it much easier to reach a consensus.

 
http://www.bad-gmbh.de/fileadmin/user_upload/BAD InForm 03/HTML/files/assets/basic-html/page13.html

… There were already various documents concerning OHM – one from B·A·D GmbH, one from TÜV Nord and OHSAS [sic!] 18001 – and they all had to be taken into consideration. …

As for e.g. communication, the definition of incidents, risk management, incident investigation and management responsibility, OHSAS 18001 seems to be more advanced. The focus on workplace health is much stronger than in case of the DIN SPEC 91020. This is specially important if it comes to mental workload issues: Instead of workers seeing the shrink, the shrink looks at their workplace. Thus, OHSAS 18001 doesn’t interfere too much with the lifestyle of employees.

Of course it took more time to develop OHSAS 18001, but as the relevant interested parties had been involved, acceptance is better than for a standard driven into the market mainly by employers. As a side effect of weak consensus building, comparing OHSAS 18001 and DIN SPEC 91020 can help to understand which parts of OHSAS 18001 do not go down well with employers.

Conclusion: Use OHSAS 18001 (or ILO-OSH etc.) for OH&S management. On top of that, DIN SPEC 91020 can be a nice add on. DIN SPEC 91020 alone does not meet the requirements of safety management systems.