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UNISON's health & safety zone

Risk assessment

Risk assessment is a simple concept. It is the process of identifying what hazards exist in a workplace and how likely these hazards are to cause harm to workers and others, in order to decide what prevention or control measures are needed.

Every employer must carry out risk assessments on the workplace and if you have 5 or more employees then the assessment must be recorded. However a UNISON survey showed that only 36% of employers in the voluntary sector had conducted an adequate risk assessment and 27% had conducted no risk assesment.

The most wide-ranging requirements are included in the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations. Regulation 3 places a legal duty on employers to carry out risk assessment as a first step to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace.

In addition, risk assessments are required if there is any manual handling, or use of chemicals within the workplace.

The Health and Safety Executive says of the risk assessment regulations "they are comprehensive in coverage of places, activities and other sources of hazard. They require you to assess all the risks in your workplace. That is, what could cause harm to yourself, your employees (if any) and members of the public, and the likelihood that harm will occur in practice. You then need to decide on the precautions you must take to prevent this happening".

Please remember that risk assessment are your responsibility as an employer, although any safety representative should be consulted.

The Health and Safety Executive have described the basic steps to making risk assessments in a free publication "Five Steps to Risk Assessments". To get a copy call HSE Books on 01787 881165 www.hsebooks.co.uk

• Step one -look for and list the hazards.
• Step two - decide who might be harmed and how.
• Step three - evaluate the risk arising from the hazards and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more should be done.
• Step four - record the findings.
• Step five - review the assessment from time to time and revise it if necessary.

However, UNISON believes that this should only be a starting point. In some voluntary organisations a more in-depth assessment is needed.

The employer's main risk assessment duties under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations are:

• Make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of their employees and to any others who might be affected;
• Identify the preventive and protective measures needed;
• Introduce the measures needed to improve workplace health and safety;
• Review the assessment if there is reason to believe that it is no longer valid - for example, if the process has changed, the building has been refurbished or an experienced worker has left;
• Where there are five or more employees, keep a written record of the findings of the assessment and any groups of employees particularly at risk;
• Have arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring, and review of the preventative and protective measures which have been introduced;
• Provide any health surveillance identified in the risk assessment
• Appoint competent people to assist the employer;
• Establish procedures to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger;
• Provide health and safety information, instruction and training for all employees;
• Consult with safety representatives if you have any.

UNISON's guide to risk assessment will help you further:
Acrobat PDF version