Stop work authority is the explicit right of any worker to stop a task they believe is unsafe, without needing permission and without consequence. Almost every safety programme claims it. Very few can name the last time somebody used it, which is the only measure that means anything. This page is about the difference between the two, and about the four conditions that decide which kind of programme you have.
Stated authority and used authority are different things
The test is not whether your documents contain the phrase, it is whether anybody has used it recently and what happened to them afterwards. A programme where no stop has been called in two years is either operating in unusually benign conditions or has a workforce that has correctly read the incentives. Counting stops, and asking about them without defensiveness, is the cheapest diagnostic available in this whole area.
The four conditions that make it real
First, the authority is unambiguous: any person, any task, no permission needed. Second, the response is defined: work stops, the situation is assessed by somebody competent, and it restarts only when the concern is resolved or explained. Third, there is no penalty, and that includes the informal ones, the eye-roll and the reputation. Fourth, stops are recorded and reviewed, so a stop that revealed a genuine gap changes an assessment rather than evaporating once the shift ends.
The failure mode is the wrong stop being punished
Someone will eventually stop work over something that turns out to be fine. How that is handled decides the future of the programme entirely. Treating it as a good-faith use of the authority, thanking the person and explaining what they saw, costs an hour. Treating it as an overreaction costs the programme, because everybody who hears about it learns exactly what the authority is worth, and no amount of restating the policy afterwards recovers it.
Where it belongs in the documents
Name it in the safe system of work for the activities where it matters most, name who assesses a stop and how work restarts, and record stops in the same system as near misses and incidents so the patterns sit together. A stop is a near miss with a person in it who acted, and it deserves the same loop back to the assessment that any other finding gets.
Questions people ask about stop work authority
Is stop work authority a legal requirement?
The phrase is a North American convention rather than a term in British regulations, but the substance is not optional anywhere: employers must not require people to work in circumstances that put them in serious and imminent danger, and workers who leave such a situation are protected. Writing the authority down makes an existing right usable.
How do you record a stop?
Briefly, and in the same place as near misses: what the person saw, when, who assessed it, what was decided, and whether an assessment or a method statement now needs changing. The last field is what turns the stop into a permanent improvement rather than an event.
What if people abuse it?
In practice almost nobody does, and the fear of it is the reason most programmes are stated rather than used. If a pattern of unfounded stops does emerge from one person or one crew, the useful reading is usually that they do not trust something else about the work, which is worth finding out about.