This chapter sets out the legal requirements and introduces the process of risk assessment. It also covers specific assessment requirements for young people and women of child-bearing age.
Risk is a part of everyday life and work. It is not possible to eliminate all risk completely and the law does not expect you to try. But it does require that you identify hazards, evaluate the risks they present and decide upon practical actions to manage them. That process is risk assessment.
The legal requirements
The main duty is found in the Management Of Health And Safety At Work Regulations 1999(see EEF Health and Safety Summary Sheet A10). It requires that all employers, regardless of their size, carryout a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to their employees and others. Those who employ 5 or more people are required to record the significant findings of their assessment.
A number of other regulations also contain requirements to assess risks (e.g. Noise at Work Regulations, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations). All of the risks need to be covered, but if you have already carried out a specific assessment under other Regulations, you do not need to repeat this to comply with the Management Regulations.
The risk assessment process
There is no single ‘right’ way of carrying out a risk assessment. There are many different processes, suited to different circumstances, but all share 5 common elements:
1) Identify the hazards
2) Identify who is at risk
3) Evaluate the risks and decide on appropriate control measures
4) Record the findings and implement them
5) Review the assessment to ensure it remains up to date and effective.
Step 3, ‘evaluating the risks’ involves identifying what needs to be done to comply with the law. Sometimes this will mean complying with specific requirements set out in other Regulations (and outlined in the following chapters). If there are no specific requirements the employer must determine what controls are reasonably practicable to control the risks. First, by looking for ways of avoiding the risk (eg switching to a lower-risk chemical) and then, if this is not reasonably practicable, by introducing controls to reduce the risk so far as is reasonably practicable (this sequence is known as the hierarchy of controls).
In practice it is often possible to establish what controls will meet the legal requirements and the test of reasonable practicability by referring to guidance produced or recognised by HSE.
‘Suitable and sufficient’
The legal requirement is that a risk assessment be ‘suitable and sufficient’. The Approved Code of Practice to the Management Regulations makes it clear that the degree of sophistication of a risk assessment should be proportionate to the level of risk involved.
For smaller employers dealing with lower risks, for example from normal office work, a very straightforward process can be followed – HSE publishes a simple ‘5steps to risk assessment guide’, that works well in such circumstances. At the other end of the spectrum, the operator of a major petrochemical works is expected to carry out a quantitative risk assessment that involves calculating the probabilities of various failures and modelling their effects.
Most manufacturing businesses fall between these two extremes. A full quantitative assessment would be excessive, but more sophistication and prioritisation is often needed than can be delivered by the very basic method. In these circumstances a matrix approach tends to be used that identifies the relative levels of harm and probability of that harm occurring to determine the degree of control that is appropriate. A degree of expertise and experience is required to use this method effectively. EEF recommends that it be carried out by a person who is a Chartered member of IOSH.
Records
If you employ 5 or more people, you are required to record the significant findings of the assessment, as a minimum this must include:
- a record of the preventative and protective measures in place to control the risks;
- what further action, if any is required to be taken to reduce the risk sufficiently
- proof that a suitable and sufficient assessment has been made.
In practice this usually means recording notes on each of the 5 elements identified above. The notes do not need to be long and complex, but they do need to cover the key points.
Review
You should review, and if necessary amend, your risk assessment:
- following an adverse event such as an accident, near miss or case of ill health
- if there is a significant change to the work that may affect the validity of the assessment set a date for reviewing your risk assessment to ensure that it remains effective
- on a periodic basis (annual reviews are common, but in a changing work environment it may be necessary to programme more frequent reviews).