During relatively short term projects of 5 to 7 weeks duration risk assessments are provided by all contractors and those ra's apply to the individual contractor's areas of works. The Principal Contractor also provides a risk assessment covering their direct works but not always risk assessing the site/project in general. Usually one risk assessment at the start of the project. I am of the opinion that the PC, who is responsible for managing all works on site, should regularly review the PC risk assessment of site works, to include all different contractors on site and to ensure coordination. I think you will all agree with that. Question is how frequently should that risk assessment be reviewed and what are the trigger points.

If it were me and my site, I (being the PC) would review my Construction Phase Health & Safety Plan in accordance with the high risk activities on my programme. If I come across an area in which I feel my specified controls are not up to scratch then I'd look to improve that. However, for a 5-7 week programme things will already be very tight. If I'm monitoring a site and the works are being done safely, but not necessarily recorded that way I'd be less concerned than a site where the documentation is top notch but the works are likely to kill someone. How often should RA's be reviewed and when? Can depend on the programme but perhaps following progress meetings? The PC should also review the assessments provided by their subcontractors since they are in control of the site.

I would rather couch this in terms of Project Management, co-operation and co-ordination - all continuous activities. Effective management, programming and sequencing and use of appropriate tools allow bottlenecks and conflicting issues to be identified, possibly eliminated and certainly managed properly. What I wouldn't be doing though, is continually amending and updating bits of paper - I'd be talking to people and effectively supervising and monitoring that what was agreed is actually happening on the ground.