Acquisition projects within the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) are managed by its procurement arm, Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). All DE&S projects are mandated to use  the Acquisition Safety and Environmental Management System (ASEMS) to manage safety risk.

ASEMS is formed of three parts:

Part 1 - Policy

Part 2 - Instructions and Guidance

Part 3 – Assurance and Audit

Acquisition safety and environmental protection policy is published by DE&S in ASEMS Part 1.  This stipulates that all projects shall meet the objectives set out in the Project Oriented Safety Management System (POSMS) and the Project Oriented Environmental Management System (POEMS), which collectively form ASEMS Part 2.  Both the POSMS and POEMS contain a series of procedures designed to help projects manage safety risks and environmental impacts and to apply the appropriate mitigation measures.  They should also be used by contractors, suppliers, and advisors where appropriate.

Compliance with the POSMS and POEMS will ensure that any project's safety and environmental management system is robust, proportionate to the project’s levels of risk and is compatible with the DE&S corporate reporting requirements.  Their flexibility means they are compliant with all acquisition strategies and technologies, and can be applied across all domains and at all stages of the acquisition lifecycle to meet the requirements of domain-specific safety Joint Services Publications (JSPs).

Further resources available to users are available from the ASEMS Supporting Documentation pages and include introductory booklets on Safety and Environmental management and a range of tools such as the ASEMS Toolkit (part of the POSMS).

ASEMS Part 3 contains a set of assurance and audit procedures which are designed to assure project teams’ POEMS and POSMS activities and outputs.  The procedures are common to both the POEMS and POSMS.

ASEMS is published under the authority of the Head of DE&S Safety and Environmental Protection team, who is authorised to act on behalf of the Chief Executiive Officer (CEO).

The material held on this site is focussed upon supporting the British Ministry of Defence, however the authors hope that the guidance and instruction will prove useful to anyone interested in implementing a robust safety regime for high risk acquisition projects in the military or civil domains.