A New Concept in Defence Safety Standards: The Revised UK Defence Standard 00-56

In January 2005 the UK Ministry of Defence released Issue 3 of Defence Standard 00-56 (MOD 2004). This standard provides a comprehensive structure for safety management and for engineering safety into defence equipment and services. The standard moves away from mandating specific processes and instead takes a goalbased approach that requires suppliers to justify their systems by means of safety cases containing explicit arguments based on compelling evidence. This approach provides greater flexibility, especially for systems using COTS components. It is likely that the introduction of the new standard will pose challenges, as both suppliers and procurers develop new skills in developing and justifying safety claims. In this paper, the background to the revision is explained, including the challenge in producing a goal-based software standard. The structure of the standard is described and contrasting examples of potentially compliant approaches are provided. The consultation that has taken place with industry and the key challenges for both suppliers and procurers are explained.