Risk assessments who is responsible

The information contained within this article is not a complete or final statement of the law and is based on the laws of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. While UNISON has sought to ensure that the information is accurate and up to date, it is not responsible and will not be held liable for any inaccuracies and their consequences, including any loss arising from relying on this information.

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Risk assessment. What is a risk assessment? What does a risk assessment include? Who needs to conduct a risk assessment? Key facts A risk assessment is the process of identifying what hazards exist, or may appear in the workplace, how they may cause harm and to take steps to minimise harm. What should I do if I am injured in the workplace? Employers are ultimately responsible for their staff even if they work in a non University of Leeds building or are managed by a non University of Leeds manager.

The occupational health service may be contacted for advice in relation to any health hazard identified via a risk assessment. If it is decided that health surveillance is appropriate, managers can contact the occupational health service for professional advice. The law requires the employer to ensure that those carrying out risk assessments are competent. People with responsibility for risk assessments must receive the course offered by health and safety services or an equivalent as a minimum.

Any queries about alternatives should be addressed to health and safety services. Supervisory checks and audits should be carried out to determine how well the aims set down are being achieved. Corrective action should be taken when required. Additionally, if a workplace is provided for use by others, the Safety Statement must also set out the safe work practices that are relevant to them.

Hence, it is important to carry out a Risk Assessment and prepare a Safety Statement for:. Accidents and ill-health inflict significant costs, often hidden and underestimated. Legal reasons: Carrying out a Risk Assessment, preparing a Safety Statement and implementing what you have written down are not only central to any safety and health management system, they are required by law.

Health and Safety Authority inspectors visiting workplaces will want to know how employers are managing safety and health. If they investigate an accident, they will scrutinise the Risk Assessment and Safety Statement, and the procedures and work practices in use. It should be ensured that these stand up to examination. If the inspector finds that one of these is inadequate, he or she can ask the employer to revise it.

Employers can be prosecuted if they do not have a Safety Statement. Moral and ethical reasons: The process of carrying out a Risk Assessment, preparing a Safety Statement and implementing what you have written down will help employers prevent injuries and ill-health at work.

Employers are ethically bound to do all they can to ensure that their employees do not suffer illness, a serious accident or death. Every employer is required to manage safety and health at work so as to prevent accidents and ill-health. This process has a practical purpose.

This is because the system must be risk-based. The required safety measures must be proportionate to the real risks involved and must be adequate to eliminate, control or minimise the risk of injury. The areas that should be covered by the Safety Statement are specific and are set out in Section 20 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act The Statement should be based on the identification of the hazards and the Risk Assessments carried out under Section It must:.

The Safety Statement can refer to specific procedures contained in other documents. These documents might include:. These may contain lists of the hazards and precautions relevant to your organisation. It is up to the employer whether to combine all the documents or keep them separately. However, the employer must still ensure that employees are made aware of the risks in their work and the precautions which are necessary.

The employer must ensure that the contents of the Safety Statement, which includes the Risk Assessments, is brought to the attention of all employees and others at the workplace who may be exposed to any risks covered by the Safety Statement. In particular, all new employees must be made aware of the Safety Statement when they start work. The Statement must be in a form and language that they all understand. Other people may be exposed to a specific risk dealt with in the Safety Statement and the Statement should be brought to their attention.

These people could include:. Where specific tasks are carried out, which pose a serious risk to safety and health, the relevant contents of the Safety Statement must be brought to the attention of those affected, setting out the hazards identified, the Risk Assessments and the safety and health measures that must be taken.

The relevant contents of the Safety Statement should be brought to the attention of the employees and others affected at least annually, and whenever it is revised. The employer has an ongoing responsibility to ensure that all relevant persons are aware of the Safety Statement and understand its terms. A campaign to discharge this responsibility could include a combination of written and verbal communication, including:. If an employer who employs 3 or fewer employees is engaged in an activity for which there is a Code of Practice for that type of activity, they can fulfil their duty in relation to safety statements by complying with such code of practice.

This only applies where specific code s of practice are issued by the Health and Safety Authority. Codes of Practice have been prepared for several sectors including Construction, Agriculture and Quarries. The Act specifies the information that must be given to employees.

The Safety Statement must be accessible to all employees and the sections of the Safety Statement relevant to the employees must be brought to their attention, with particular regard to the specific hazards, risks and prevention measures concerning their particular job.

The Safety Statement must be brought to the attention of all employees at least annually. According to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act , a person is deemed to be a competent person where, having regard to the task he or she is required to perform and taking account of the size or hazards or both of them of the undertaking or establishment in which he or she undertakes work, the person possesses sufficient training, experience and knowledge appropriate to the nature of the work to be undertaken.

The employer has ultimate responsibility for safety and health. In most firms in the office, retail, commercial, service and light industrial sector, the hazards and hazardous work activities are few and simple.

Checking them is common sense, but necessary. In small firms, employers understand their work and can identify hazards and assess risks themselves. There are many information sources such as Authority produced Codes of Practices, and guidelines available to support employers when compiling Safety Statements See the Publications section of this website.

Consultation should always take place with the employees, including safety representatives, as they are the ones doing the work and dealing with the hazards on a daily basis. This Safety Statement specifies the manner in which the safety, health and welfare at work of his or her employees shall be secured and managed. This Safety Statement is specific and unique to each place of work. An employer using a generic Safety Statement would not be compliant with Sections 19 and 20 of the Act.

Employers can also use the other templates detailed in the sector specific Publications produced by the Authority. An Authority inspector may review a Safety Statement during an inspection of a workplace. A comprehensive Safety Statement, if properly implemented, is a practical tool for reducing accidents and ill health at work. For small to medium-sized businesses, the preparation of a Safety Statement should be simple and straightforward.

In developing a safety and health management programme for an organisation, there are 6 important steps to be followed in preparing a Safety Statement.

The declaration should give a commitment to ensuring that a workplace is as safe and healthy as reasonably practicable and that all relevant statutory requirements will be complied with. This declaration should spell out the policy in relation to overall safety and health performance, provide a framework for managing safety and health, and list relevant objectives.

Because the Safety Statement must be relevant at all times to the safety and health of employees and others in the workplace, the policy declaration should indicate that the Safety Statement will be revised as changes occur and evaluated at set intervals. It should also indicate how the relevant contents of the Statement are to be brought to the attention of employees and any other people in the workplace who might be affected by the Statement.

The first step in safeguarding safety and health is to identify hazards from materials, equipment, chemicals and work activities. The employer is required to systematically examine the workplace and work activities to identify workplace-generated hazards. If an employer controls more than one work location, different types of work activity or changing work locations as in road repairs or building work , it may be necessary to prepare a Safety Statement that has separate sections dealing with the different locations or activities.

Employers will be familiar with the hazards associated with the type of work they are involved in. But to identify the main hazards and put risks in their true perspective, employers can also check:. Some hazards are obvious, such as unguarded moving parts of machinery, dangerous fumes, electricity, working at heights, or moving heavy loads.

Less obvious, but at the root of many accidents, are hazards presented by untidy workplaces and poor maintenance. In the case of some hazards, such as excessive noise, it may take months or even years before damage materialises. In most small firms in the office, retail, commercial, service and light industrial sector, the hazards and hazardous work activities are few and simple.

For larger firms, a responsible experienced employee or a competent safety and health adviser should be used. This person must be familiar with the hazards which are relevant to the workplace under review. This checklist provides a systematic, though not exhaustive, approach to identifying hazards in the workplace. This checklist covers physical hazards, health hazards, chemical hazards, biological agents hazards and human-factor hazards.

A template which can be used for carrying out a Risk Assessment is available in the Guidelines on Risk Assessments and Safety Statements.

Employers do not have to use this format in order to comply with section Employers may already have in place some safety measures. The Risk Assessment will tell whether these are adequate. Employers must ensure they have done all that the law requires. All safety and health laws provide guidance on how to assess the risks and establish appropriate safeguards.

For example, there are legal requirements on preventing access to dangerous parts of machinery. Then, it must also be ensured that generally accepted industry standards are in place. However, do not necessarily stop at that, because the law also says that you must do what is reasonably practicable to keep the workplace safe. The real aim is to make all risks small by adding to existing precautions if necessary.

Employers need to consider if the hazard can be eliminated altogether or if the job can be changed in any way so as to make it safer and, if not, what safety precautions are necessary to control this risk? The Safety Statement is the place to record the significant findings of the Risk Assessments. This means writing down the more significant hazards and recording the most important conclusions. Employers should inform employees about their findings.

The employer should also state in the Safety Statement where other relevant documentation is retained. The Safety Statement needs to be relevant at all times. Implementing the Safety Statement should be an integral part of everyday operations. A copy of the Statement or relevant extracts of it must be kept available for inspection at or near every workplace to which it relates.