Risk assessments

Find out from your headteacher whether you are expected to carry out risk assessments? If you are required to do this, here are some guidelines which should help.

Risk assessment is a procedure used in many fields of work. Essentially, it is a way to evaluate 'hazards and risks', and implement the 'control measures' that are needed to eliminate or reduce them. `Hazard' means something with the potential to cause harm. 'Risk' is the likelihood of that hazard actually causing harm and the seriousness of that harm, and `control measures' are the procedures put in place to remove, reduce or manage the risk. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) stresses the importance of not over-complicating risk assessments and states that the risk assessment process is basically common sense. Broadly, a risk assessment is a careful examination of what could cause harm, so that one can judge whether enough precautions have been taken to prevent harm. The overall aim is to ensure that no one gets hurt or becomes ill as a result of incidents that could have been avoided. 

 

Five steps to risk assessment 

The HSE document Five Steps to Risk Assessment, suggests the following tips for risk assessors 

1. Look for the hazards ­- look at your work activity or workplace, and then consider what could be reasonably expected to cause harm 
2. Decide who might be harmed and how ­- consider everyone working at your workplace and everyone using the site 
3. Evaluate the risks ­- decide whether the existing precautions are adequate or whether more should be done. Decide whether the risks can be eliminated or reduced effectively so that harm will not occur
4. Record your findings ­- where significant risks are present, record the findings and state how they can be controlled to prevent harm. Most importantly, employees must be informed about the outcome of the risk assessment, as they will be the ones who will need to take action (site-specific forms can be produced, however, in order not to make risk assessments too complicated, the HSE suggests using the headings in the 'five steps' process) 
5. Review your assessment and revise if necessary -­ risk assessments should be periodically reviewed to ensure they are still effective, or when the work changes and new risks may be introduced. 

The purpose is to decide on appropriate control measures to remove or reduce the risk. Like any other management system, risk assessments must be kept up-to-date. They should be recorded and reviewed regularly. 

 

Employers are responsible for ensuring that risk assessments are carried out by competent members of staff, ie individuals with sufficient experience, training or aptitude.

 

These individuals may be existing employees or external health and safety professionals. The Management of Health and Safety Regulations require that organisations have access to competent health and safety assistance, preferably within the organisation itself. Many LEAs can offer this service, but some schools and colleges prefer to buy in the services of a specialist health and safety adviser. 

 

It is worth noting that the HSE considers it unacceptable if risk assessments are neglected. If an HSE inspector visits a workplace, for example, to investigate an accident, risk assessment records will be among the first things that she will ask to see. Many schools and colleges produce 'generic' risk assessments, which detail the procedures that are to be followed. These are particularly useful for newly qualified members of staff.

 

Help and support
For further advice on this issue, ATL members can speak to their school rep, their branch secretary or their regional official. They can also call the London (020 7930 6441), Cardiff (029 2046 5000), Belfast (028 9078 2020) or Edinburgh (0131 272 2748) offices or email info@atl.org.uk

For out of hours enquiries, call the out of office hours helpline on 020 7782 1612 (Monday-Friday, 5-8pm during term time).

If you are not a member, join now. 

Useful websites

• http://www.hse.gov.uk