Risk assessment is the easy bit...
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging businesses to spend less time dotting 'i's and crossing 't's on risk assessments and more time on putting practical actions into effect. Its revamped risk assessment guide features examples that spell out, in plain English, what is - and what is not - expected.

HSE's deputy chief executive, Jonathan Rees, said: 'We want to save lives, not tie businesses up in red tape - good risk assessment is the way to achieve this. Risk assessment is at the heart of sensible health and safety.' He added that risk assessments 'should be a practical way of protecting people from real harm and suffering, not a bureaucratic back-covering exercise. On its own paperwork never saved a life, it needs to be a means to an end, resulting in actions that protect people in practice.'

HSE says the revamped guidance, 'Five steps to risk assessment', has been simplified to make it even easier for normal business people, not just health and safety experts, to use. It now places greater emphasis on making sure that decisions are put into practice.

TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson welcomed the new guide. 'This new practical guidance shows that risk assessment is not rocket science. It shows clearly what employers need to do to obey the law. It also shows the need to involve workers in the process.' He added: 'Sadly many employers have still done no risk assessment and we hope this publication will be used by all sectors where the basic approach is relevant.'

HSE news release.
HSE risk management webpages, including online risk assessment guide.
Five Steps to Risk Assessment, INDG163(rev2) (pdf)

Reprinted from Risks Newsletter - Editor: Rory O'Neill of Hazards magazine. Risks is the TUC's weekly online bulletin for safety reps and others, read each week by over 13,000 subscribers and 1,500 on the TUC website. To receive this bulletin every week, click here .

Note: The HSE advises that HSE example risk assessments are "intended to show the kind of approach we expect a small business to take. It is not a generic risk assessment that you can just put your company name on and adopt wholesale without any thought. Doing that would not satisfy the law - and would not be effective in protecting people. Every business is different - you need to think through the hazards and controls required in your business for yourself."  This advice should equally be applied to any of the risk assessment samples found below.