In several recent naval ship building projects, Lloyd’s Register has been looking at methods for integrating statutory compliance with the hazard and risk assessment mandated by some ship building contracts. The Authors have observed that standards are sometimes applied without due regard of operational context. Equally they have spent hours assessing risks for simple reliable equipment designed to rules, codes and standards.  
As a result, we propose in this paper, an integrated approach for assessing the whole ship safety, with a focus on the safe to operate aspects, building a comprehensive safety argument founded on an agreed standards set which is augmented with a focused safety assessment delivering value and a proportionate risk assessment.