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Posted By Kenneth Patrick
The interesting thread generated about the skip man who had never supplied an RA led to me to ponder:-
What do we all think is the purpose of a Risk Assessment?
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Posted By Chris Packham
If I had to put it in a single sentence it would be: "Risk assessment is intended to identify those situations in a workplace where action is needed to ensure that workes' (and anyone else who might be affected) safety and health is not impaired."
Chris
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Posted By Flic
Actually, the Management Regs, 1999, tell us:
'.... for the purpose of identifying the measures he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed upon him by or under relevant statutory provisions'
The 'relevant statutory provisions' will sometimes specify what must be taken into account in the risk assessment and will sometimes identify minimum standards (such as exposure limits).
In any event there is an overall requirement (even in the absence of specific statutory provisions) to:
'....ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees' (section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act)
These two places are a good start.
Flic
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Posted By Adam Worth
Just ask the HSE :)
"A risk assessment is simply a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people, so that you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm. "
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Posted By Descarte
Firstly - To identify and record hazards ensuring control measures are in place to reduce the risk as low as reasonably practical.
Secondly - Making the operator exposed to such risks aware of them, the controls measures involved and identify any requirements for training and competancy required for operation / involvement in such equipment or activities.
Des
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Posted By NJS
As i was taught by my NEBOSH tutor a Risk assessment is a step in the risk management process. A Risk assessment is the determination of the quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat. Quantitative risk assessments require calculations of two components of risk:
R, the magnitude of the potential loss L, and the probability p that the loss will occur.
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Posted By Pete Longworth
The question was "what is the purpose of a risk assessmen?" not "what is a risk assessment?"
The answer is "to stop people getting hurt".
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Posted By Phil Rose
NJS and Pete are on the right track.
I would say that the purpose of a risk assessment is (and I don't want to get bogged down in the semantics of hazard/risk etc) to examine the nature and size of hazards etc etc in order to (and here is the real IMPORTANT bit) to take INFORMED decisions to implement implement suitable and effective precautions to manage the risk to an acceptable level.
At the risk of being 'provocative' I reckon I have seen many many risk assessments that are of little real value in actually MANAGING risks.
Hence my response on the 'Never supply an RA' thread - don't fall into the trap of assuming that the completion/possession of a risk assessment means that risks are being controlled and conversely that the absence of a risk assessment means that risks aren't being controlled.
A risk assessment is merely the FIRST step along that path to MANAGING them - that's what saves the lives!
Phil
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Posted By Ron Hunter
It is my view that the HSe's every-day definition (quoted above)is over simplified and doesn't do much to support the management process.
In attempting to "sell" the R/A concept, I fear the HSE have gone too far and effectively devalued the process?
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Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
Unless my esteemed colleagues Peter Gotch and Bob Lewis can enlighten me otherwise, I thought the original purpose of placing the RA duty within 1992 Management Regs was UK's attempt to retain the principal of ‘so far as reasonably practicable’ within the general ‘Principles of Prevention’ as outlined in Article 6(2) of the Council Directive 89/391/EEC.
Basically (as I understood it) John Major’s government did not wish to go through the process of re-drafting the Health and Safety at Work Act in order to meet the ‘Principles of Prevention’
As you all know, this did not work as management Regs were re-written to include the ‘Principles of Prevention’. This is still a controversial issue with the EC as some States believe that we are still not complying with this Directive.
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Posted By stephen d clarke
Hi,
The purpose of risk assessment is to assist us in deciding on an appropriate safe system of work for a particular task/equipment/etc.
Steve
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Posted By Rodger Alan Ker
When I've attempted to explain these things to small contractors in the simplest of terms, I've always stated:
A "Method Statement" describes how you are going to do a job, and a "Risk Assessment" is the hazards that you have identified from/in the Method Statement and indicates how you are going to eliminate or reduce them.
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Posted By Phil Rose
Ron
I tend to agree - I don't much 'like' the HSE approach. And I am not much 'taken' with their example risk assessments either!
Stephen - if the Principles of prevention are followed, some risks can be effectively eliminated without the need for a safe system of work
Phil
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Posted By stephen d clarke
Hi,
Doesn't elimination or avoidance of risk come first, then evaluate the risks that can't be avoided by risk assessment whence comes the safe system of work.
Steve
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Posted By Roly Buss Re the Principles of Protection. Interesting that a recent prosecution included a breach of Management Regs R4 which is the principles of protection. See http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2009/coine06409.htmThey are not quite the same as ERICPD or whatever version of the heirarchy you use Roly
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Posted By peter gotch As discussed with Arran, the principle of "reasonable practicability" was upheld in the European Court of Justice in the case of European Commission v United Kingdom (Case C-127/05) http://www.bailii.org/eu...s/EUECJ/2007/C12705.html Of course this does not mean that one should not consider the hierarchy of control in so far as each level is reasonably practicable - similar principles to those in Reg 11 of th Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regs 1998. Regards, Peter
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Posted By Pete48
I am with Phil R.
The simple, single purpose is to inform (direct, guide, influence) management decisions in order to effectively manage risk.
That is the definition I was given when first studying risk management in the years before it became a household phrase or was placed explicitly in regs and codes applicable to general workplaces.
Still works for me mmmm years later.
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Posted By Liz Skelton
The purpose of a RA for me is that it is an action plan to help to establish how people can get hurt and how to reduce the chances of people getting hurt.
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Posted By Graham Bullough
The basic purpose of risk assessment (RA) is to avoid or minimise harm which can arise from a situation or activity, including doing something or even not doing something.
RA doesn't necessarily need to be recorded. Everyone of us makes countless mental RAs every day. For example, when I'm leading a training session about RA I suggest to participants that they made a series of RAs while travelling to the venue. e.g. pausing at a T-junction while driving to look at nearby traffic and decide if there is a sufficient gap to be able to pull out without being hit by another vehicle.
In occupational safety & health we think of RA mainly as a tool for preventing bodily harm in the form of injury and work related ill-health. If we think outside our field and consider other forms of harm, similar principles surely apply. For example, not buying and displaying a ticket in a pay & display car park could result in financial harm in the form of a penalty notice costing significantly more than the price of a ticket. If you just want to pop into a nearby shop to collect something and can't see a parking warden in the vicinity, you might well decide/assess to take a chance by not buying a ticket. If you need to leave your car for a longer period, you might think the odds are against you and buy a ticket. However, if you are at a car park in a small remote town and know that wardens normally only visit on a particular day each week, you might well decide to take a chance by not buying a ticket on other days. If you knowingly have a car with false or stolen registration plates, you wouldn't care at all about finding a penalty notice on the car - nor for any poor sod who might own a car with the same registration and later receives a nasty letter in the post alleging non-payment of the penalty.
Please don't take the final part of the scenario above as impugning or inciting readers/viewers of this forum - it's merely to help illustrate how RAs of a situation by different people can vary according to their knowledge, understanding and perception (if any) of the factors which need to be considered!
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Posted By IOSH Moderator
Since bad language is not permitted on the forums, the penultimate paragraph of the previous post is to be interpreted as
'nor for any poor piece of grassland who might own a car with the same registration and later receives a nasty letter in the post alleging non-payment of the penalty.'
;o)
Jane
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Posted By shyjukr
provide safe working environment and prevent the accident
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Posted By Al..
Arran hit the nail on the head at 1122. His post is worth reading again. Many practitioners today will not have been working in health and safety before we had this blanket requirement for written risk assessment and probably cannot imagine a world without it. It was an attempt to square HASWA and English Law with the rather different regimes across the Channel, nothing more. It was certainly not an attempt to improve standards of health and safety management. A lot of people at the time, including some senior people in the HSE, were quite shocked that the UK signed up to it. My own view is that it has proved to be a millstone around our necks and has been largely responsible for the bureaucratic mess which too often is created in the name of health and safety. What matters is whether a task is being carried out safely, not whether a written record of the significant findings of a risk assessment exists. If we could remove one Regulation from the statute book I would go for Reg 3 of MHSWR.
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Posted By Phil Rose
Al
I agree wholeheartedly with your penultimate sentence; it's not what we write down on bits of paper that saves people from serious injury and ill health - it's what we actually subsequently DO.
I guess that the HSE are on a bit of a 'hiding to nothing' at times, and I think even they 'struggled' with the process for a long time and are now trying to unravel so of their earlier 'mistakes' with the 'sensible risk debate' etc.
I have said it before, but will repeat it again, the presence of a recorded risk assessment does not mean that risks are being managed. Likewise the absence of one doesn't mean that they aren't.
Phil
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Posted By Tom Doyle
Great thread.
It is very clear, based on the responses, that the risk assessment process does not have a single purpose. Apparently the process itself forms the core of the decision making process regarding understanding hazards, work, and the best and most reasonable approach to dealing with human interaction with the considered hazards.
That being said, risk assessment, and the choices made during the process, do not protect people. Risk will only be effected once the decisions made are acted upon by the stakeholders. Therefore one could conclude that it is the output of the process rather than the process itself that contributes to injury prevention.
Cheers,
Tom Doyle
Industrial Safety Integration
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Posted By David Bannister
To comply with the law(s).
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Posted By Kenneth Patrick
Thank you all for actual focusing on my question about "what do we all think is the purpose" and generating such a good debate. You could have stopped at the second post from Flic who gave the definitive answer to the question " what is the purpose".
I am in full agreement with the view of Al.. that it has become a millstone and I think the profession through IOSH should engage the HSE in a serious debate about this.
There are so many people who know how to do a job well and safely, who can produce good workable safe procedures and method statements but who then get into a mess doing the "legal" Risk Assessment.
Ken
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Posted By Phil Rose
Doing a risk assessment just to comply with the law!
I have been doing it wrong for years - I thought it was about saving people from injury and ill health!
Phil
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Posted By Pete48
I can see why you would say that Phil, I read it the same way on first read.
I wonder, however, whether the post is simply reinforcing the point that in the present common usage it is actually the only purpose of many that are completed. I would have to add the word "attempt" at the beginning of course.
It saddens an old heart to see where we have travelled to in the quest for a risk based, goal setting approach to safety across the whole spectrum of the workplace but a discussion about that probably needs a new thread to avoid de-railing this one.
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Posted By mark linton
To identify what can go wrong and to prevent it from happening in the first place.
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Posted By John Allen
The purpose of risk assessment is quite simple – to make my life easier!
I will explain. The first 15 years or so of my working life consisted of a succession of people coming up to me and saying “We are about to do X (whatever X is), is it safe?” Now funnily enough the people asking the question were usually the experts in that work and were the ones about to do the job.
Since MHSW Regs came into force my working life now consists of me going up to other people and saying “You are about to do X, is it safe?”
Irrespective of the discussion about harmonisation of UK (not English) law and European Directives, Reg 3 of MHSW is the only way we’ve found to instigate Robens’ great theme, that those who are exposed to the risk should be involved in managing it.
Not surprisingly since they've had a say in controlling it, people have been a bit more conservative about risk.
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Posted By Tinks
In discussion, and as HS&E professionals, we all know what the answer is; but after viewing all that has been posted on this subject, the answer to read is the one....Posted by Phil Rose on Thursday, 05 March 2009 at 10:51. Very good Phil..
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