Risk Assessment
By the Riskora Editorial Team · Last reviewed
A risk assessment is the structured process of identifying hazards, judging who could be harmed, and recording the controls used to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, every UK employer must carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to employees and to anyone else affected by their work.
Where five or more people are employed, the significant findings must be recorded in writing. In construction, written risk assessments are effectively required for everything because they form part of the documentation principal contractors expect under CDM 2015.
A risk assessment is not the same as a method statement. The risk assessment identifies and rates the hazards; the method statement describes the safe sequence used to control them. RAMS pairs the two.
Why it matters
An HSE inspector or principal contractor reviewing your work will look at the risk assessment first. A vague or generic assessment signals the contractor has not thought about the specific site — which is the trigger for closer scrutiny of everything else.