Risk-Oriented Approach to Control and Supervision Activities in the Sphere of Industrial and Occupational Safety. Risk Indices for Compliance with Compulsory Requirements

The reform of the state and supervision activities is carried out in order to improve the efficiency of supervision activities due to the optimal use of human, material, and financial resources used for the state control (supervision), reduction of expenses of legal bodies, individual entrepreneurs, and improving the performance of activities by the state control (supervision) bodies when organizing specific types of the state control (supervision). One of the most efficient methods to reach the goals is the implementation of the risk-oriented approach which is a method of organization and implementation of the state control (supervision) based on the choice of intensity (form, duration, and periodicity) of events of control and is determined by the classification of activities of a legal body, individual entrepreneur, and (or) production facilities used by them during such activities to a certain risk category or to a certain hazard class (category). The adoption of the Federal Law «On the state control (supervision) in the Russian Federation» gave new impetus to the application of the risk-oriented approach. It introduced a number of new approaches to the practices of control and supervision activities. The classification criteria as four hazard classes of facilities are legislatively established for hazardous production facilities in industrial safety. The Ministry of Labor of Russia classified such facilities in accordance with five risk categories. The Federal Law «On the state control (supervision) in the Russian Federation» stipulates that unscheduled supervisory inspections are mainly conducted based on the risk indices, the list of which must be approved by a federal executive body. Such lists were approved by Rostechnadzor in 2021 and by the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation in 2023. They were updated in 2023 and will be expanded in the future. The implementation of the risk-oriented approach in Rostechnadzor and the Ministry of Labor helped to reduce the number of scheduled inspections and increase the number of unscheduled inspections conducted based on the activation of risk indices.