The ambiguity of contents and results in the Norwegian internal control of safety, health and environment reform

The results of introducing a mandatory public reform in Norway with regard to the requirements on enterprisesʹ management of safety, health and environment (SHE) systems are reviewed and discussed. The reform, named internal control (IC), implies a delegation of the direct control of SHE conditions to the enterprises, and introduces system auditing as the main tool for the regulatory bodies. A mixture of successes and failures in implementing the reform, including some perspectives for further adaptation and development of the IC concept are discussed.