The Safety Culture Ladder identifies the level of safety awareness in your organisation.
The Safety Culture Ladder offers a range of products to help you gain an insight into your organisation’s safety culture. The products differ in terms of their assessment methods and the outcome: a self-declaration, a statement or a certificate.
The Self-Assessment is available to organisations of all sizes. For the other SCL products, there is a minimum threshold of five employees.
| Feature | Self-assessment (SA) | SCL Light (Small organisations) | SCL Light | SCL | SCL Original |
| Suitable for | Organisations of all sizes, including those with fewer than five employees | 5 to 50 employees | From 5 employees | From 5 employees | From 5 employees |
| Document | Self-declaration | Statement | Statement | Certificate | Certificate |
| Step range | No formal indication of a step | Step indication (max. step 3) | Step indication (max. step 3) | Step entry (max step 4) | Step listing (all steps possible) |
| SCL Web tool | Mandatory (SAQ*) | Mandatory (SAQ*) | Mandatory (SAQ*) | SAQ* or questionnaire of your choice | SAQ* or questionnaire of your choice |
| Internal Auditor | Required for inclusion in the SA register; trained in accordance with the requirements of NEN | Compulsory (trained in accordance with NEN requirements) | N/A. | N/A. | N/A. |
| External Audit Year 1 | No external audit | Partial (40%) | Partial (40%) | Full (100%) | Full (100%) |
| External Audit Year 2 | N/A. | Assessment of behavioural goals (1 auditor) | Assessment of behavioural goals (1 auditor) | Partial (40%) | Full (100%) |
| External Audit Year 3 | N/A. | No external audit** (if criteria met). Otherwise 1 auditor. | Assessment of behavioural goals (1 auditor) | Partial (40%) | Full (100%) |
| Validity | Valid for 1 year. Organisations with 5 or more employees may renew once; organisations with fewer than 5 employees may renew annually | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years |
| More information | Read more | Read more | Read more | Read more | Read more |
With SCL Original and SCL, your organisation will receive a certificate stating its level following an assessment. SCL Light provides a statement indicating the level.
In the Self-Assessment, your organisation assesses its own safety culture using the SCL Webtool. The result is a self-declaration without a formal rating. No external audit takes place and no certification body is involved.
Inclusion of the self-declaration in the SA register is voluntary. The SA does not result in the issue of a certificate or statement and does not constitute recognised evidence for clients.
* SAQ: The Self Assessment Questionnaire is offered exclusively through the SCL Web tool. The questions have been approved by the Committee of Experts.
** Criteria year 3 (Small organisations): The external audit in year 3 will only expire if the auditor in year 2 determines that: 1) the behavioural goals have been achieved, 2) the management is demonstrably involved, 3) the behavioural change is visible on the shop floor and 4) the organisation still meets the requirements of the step indication.
Do you need to comply with a certain SCL requirement for a client such as, for example, ViA, TenneT, ProRail or a province, municipality or water board? If so, they will usually indicate which product you need. Contact the relevant client to find out what requirements they have.