Frequently asked questions about BS 31100 and BS ISO 31000
What is the difference between BS 31100 and BS ISO 31000?
BS ISO 31000 is the international standard for risk management and provides principles and guidelines to the subject. BS 31100 is a code of practice that compliments BS ISO 31000. BS 31100 also gives additional guidance to risk management that is not covered in the international standard.
The documents take an almost identical approach to risk management but some of the headings and terms used are different.
Although the activities described are the same in both standards, the umbrella term 'risk assessment' includes the activity of 'risk identification' in BS ISO 31000. In BS 31100 'risk identification' is not included within 'risk assessment' and instead comes just before it in the risk management process.
How do I work with BS ISO 31000 and BS 31100?
The clauses of the two documents can be related as follows:
| Clauses of BS ISO 31000 Principles and guidelines |
Location of equivalent topics in BS 31100, Code of practice
|
| 1 Scope |
1 Scope |
| 2 Terms and definitions |
Glossary
(Expanded) |
| 3 Principles |
2 Risk management principles
(In a different order) |
| 4 Framework |
3 Risk management framework, and
5 Developing risk management activities
(To clarify and expand on the Framework the British Standard split it into non-procedural guidance in clause 3 and a procedure to follow, given in clause 5) |
| 5 Process |
4 Risk management process |
Do BS ISO 31000 and BS 31100 use the same concepts?
Four concepts have different names in the two documents:
| Term in BS ISO 31000 Principles and guidelines |
Equivalent term in BS 31100 Code of practice |
| ‘integrated’ |
‘embedded’ |
| ‘risk management policy’ |
‘risk management strategy’ |
| ‘design of the risk management framework’ |
‘risk management policy’ |
| ‘risk treatment option’ |
‘risk response’ |
What is the future of BS 31100 now that BS ISO 31000 has published?
BSI’s committee for risk management will update BS 31100 to make the correspondence between the two documents easier. It will also add some extra guidance that will be useful when using the two documents.
The updated version of BS 31100 has been currently scheduled to publish at the end of 2010.