At our site we have, on occasion, a requirement for emergency repair work to be carried out or for areas to be made safe - usually following flood damage, water ingress, damage as a result of burglary, etc. We use a contractor for this work - a small 2-man company which is 'forced' upon us by the senior management team and owners of the company. They have submitted Risk Assessments and Method Statements for site maintenance which is carried out at various times throughout the year - some bespoke improvement projects, others are more general maintenance works. I am developing a dynamic risk assessment form to be used by our own Facilities Team but was wondering what users thoughts were on allowing the contractor to use this form to make their own assessment in emergency call-out situations? I'm thinking along the lines of plausible insurance liability risk as we are providing paperwork for the contractor to use and stipulating that they must use? Your thoughts please..................

Risk assessment is a requirement of law placed upon the employer. If these people are not employed by you then you should not do their risk assessments. However, and I have recently been in this position, where the workers are on site and do not have a risk assessment why not assist them by providing some guidance, perhaps in the way of a generic assessment for then to bring up to site/task specific or even just a blank template, at least it will get the risk assessment carried out and the work can go ahead - safely.

Dinamic risk assessments is often a cop out situation where the main body cant be bothered to undertake even the simplist risk assesment. They prefer under a misconception that it releaves them of all responsibility. There are some circumstances when an on the spot risk assessment may be appropriate but in the circumstances you suggest of repairs to premises after such things as floods etc do not differ in many ways from normal maintenance works in buildings. It is possible to have generic type risk assessments such as the use of ladders that set out the conditions they are to be used which covers all ther relevent risks such as sound footing of the ladder not over stretching etc. The use of blank forms to fill in trnds to lead the person down the road of making the circumstances fit the generic answers and is not a real test of the risks that are present. Dinamic risk assessment should be done by those who are competent to undertake these assessments and not a simple exercise in form filling.

The form I gave the contractor recently is a copy of that in the HSE website, 5 steps to risk assessment where there are many example risk assessments. The way I see it if it's good enough for HSE to use it's good enough for me to use. If it's not broke don't fix it!

DRA is an additional step to assess immediate risks. Additional to the original, maybe generic catch-all RA on which operators will have/should have been trained. The DRA happens when they arrive at the job site and take a minute or two to assess any hazards which may not have been covered by the RA and/or to assess the degree of risk TODAY from new or previously identified possible risks. A DRA form can serve as a simple (and I reallyreally mean simple) checklist to remind the operators of what they could possibly find. Observations may or may not be documented. Just to emphasise, the DRA is IN ADDITION to the RA. No RA ? No job. Merv

boblewis is correct, the risk assessment should continue throughout the job as circumstances can change, but there is not enough time to write it down. This is common sence working, if it becomes dangerous you would stop and reassess the situation. In that sence dynamic risk assessment is the wrong title it should be working risk assessment as it is continuos at the time the job is being done. This would cover only emerging danger and not just a formal process.

boblewis, exactumondo. The point is the general risk assessment is quite easy to have as a template that sets the standard system for contyroling the risk, where there is additional one of risk thwe need to asses them is quite important. My mainpoint is that employers (not general) seem to be getting into a system of dynamic risk assesment simply to avoid them doing the RA in the first place. Still feel that Dinamic Risk Assessment is a cop out by certain employers.

Bob S Precisely my problem with so many attempts to use DRA. There can never be any reason not to have a task assessment before the work starts - it is after all what regulation requires. The generic approach only works when trained persons use the base model assessment to produce the final TRA. We need competent workers undertaking assessment of the task as they proceed if we are ever to reduce the many accidents that are occurring. From a management system perspective all the quality, environmental and safety standards all seek competent persons but third party auditors are not always pushing this very hard and they stop at training alone as being equivalent to competence - which is not true as we both recognise. Bob

Good points Chris. Personally, I think RAs are often nothing more than 'paper' safety which only serve to protect the employer's back. Many activities are dynamic and require those undertaking the task to be competent in the task. RAs are not the Philosopher's Stone. Despite a legal requirement we should not be so obsessed with RAs, most of which are generic and often not read by the staff anyway. It's time to move on me thinks to more positive h&s initiatives. When I was a train driver I did not refer to RAs when I had an operational problem, training, experience and how to seek advice or assistance is what got the train moving...

We rely heavily on DRA's as a backup to our Generic and Specific RA's, we stipulate that if a DRA has been employed that it is formally recorded within a reasonable period on a risk assessment form. Our perspective is that DRA's are accountable, and as such should be written down (eventually)...

Bob, We go down the route that legislation states all risk assessments must be suitable and sufficient, communiicated to personnel and recorded. If one of our staff makes a DRA, it will be in an operational context, and as such, is recorded to ensure that the decision making process was correct and reasonably practicable. If we don't record them then how can manage them both in a legal and quality context. If an issue could be foreseen happening again then any relevant Generic or Specific RA's are updated.

Nope, Right there with you Bob, our DRA's are used in an operational envronment for unforeseen issues, we record them for reasons of probity, but also because they are risk assessments, and we are bound to record all risk assessments by law....

Bob S and I are singing not just from the same hymn sheet but the same book. You cannot simply record a "DRA" as though it was a formalised assessment. The HSE have never questioned me over this approach and all they have looked at is the initial TRA and the training of operatives for DRA. I think Ken's organisation have become typical of most of the petrochem industry where cost is never an issue and everyone expects once in many billions failure rate. Believe me I have experienced this with many oil companies. Bob

A 2 man company does not have to record risk assessment, 5 or more must be in writing problem solved!!!

Interesting. Most of us carry out DRAs each and every day without resorting to recording the findings etc, and I would agree that many work related DRAs do not necessarily need recording, and that there would be little to be gained in terms of managing the health and safety risks, and serve to do little more than create unnecessary paperwork. I would have thought that in the example that we are discussing, that most of the risks could be adequately controlled by using generic RA's. Of course striclty there is no requirement to record every RA but rather to record the SIGNIFICANT findings. The danger with considering and recording every risk is that you lose sight of the 10 ton weight dangling over your head on a piece of frayed string!

I did a dynamic risk assessment on Thursday when I went to sign off a new welfare facility (portable cabins inside a compound). When I arrived the cabins were in place but no compound as the block and mesh had not arrived, it did turn up while I was there. How is it getting off the wagon I asked, Hiab was the answer - just one problem - someone had stolen all slings off the wagon. The decision was made to handball off and three of us did it with the help of the vehicle driver. I assessed the hazards and risk and decided it would be OK so allowed it to go ahead. No problems, no accidents or injuries and no paperwork.

Must agree with Clive. DRA should be used when there is so much variables and ponderables that the emergency services encounter. A split second decision requires to be made on the spot. But the learnings are communicated as Clive says to give a range of learnings and outcomes that people coming across something similar have a heads up of sorts. Chris - can I suggest that what you did was NOT a DRA as you had ample time to make judgements and was in total control of the siuation and could have recorded significant issues if you wished. A police officer on the chase of an armed person does not have that luxury. I am not saying an assessment needs to be recorded but difficult to prove you considered risk if you cant prove it. Also Chris - should you not be highlighting the issue of lack of slings so it does not come up again? Or indeed how you managed to do it safely? David

Thanks again to everyone who replied. ptaylor14 - My original posting wasnt questioning the legalities surrounding risk assessments or the MHSWR. I am aware of the legal requirements, but thanks anyway! ChrisBurns - agree with you there about paperwork...............but where do we draw the line? This is what I struggle with - im trying to broaden my experience and skillset and this forums is helping in a big way. The issue is - we are currently in the HSE spotlight following a very serious accident which occured almost 12mths ago (before my time) involving a contractor onsite. I am trying to build a titanium butt-shield for the company (and myself) and to demonstrate to the regulator that we have stringent but flexible systems in place to deal with every eventuality. I often find it difficult to gauge how far to go with paperwork - especially recording the fact that a risk assessment TRA or DRA has been carried out...........and insurance companies only make that job even more difficult. Its rather difficult to argue the case with a loss-adjuster if you cant demonstrate it in writing. I do have concerns about the contractor however our hands are tied at the moment and we have to use them. Unfortunately, thats the way family-owned businesses are sometimes. I have baby-sat the contractor through the RA process and encouraged him along the way. His TRA's are suitable for specific project related work but I will be introducing a DRA process to cover emergency callouts should he be called out to site in the middle of the night by the FM to 'make safe' any emergency joinery/water issues. cheers guys

B.Bruce, slow down a bit. You say in your last posting that you are trying to cover any call out situations. That does not mean you can rely on dynamic risk assessment. The situation is a possible method of work therefore you should have a risk assesment to cover the eventuality of this arising. Reliance upon dynamic risk assessment is a simple cop out of your responsibilities or at least of your contractor. You need to be very careful on what you do as the responsibility rwsts with your contractor and to hold his hands to much could put you in a very undesirable position as he could claim you have taken responsibility from him. Lead him yes but the decision must rest with him as to what he does, you can decide afterwards if this meeets your company's requirements but this must be managed very carefully.

Okay - having spent some time today actually researching what a dynamic risk assessment is I have come to the conclusion that I have been misinformed by colleagues - it appears not to be what everyone in the office thought! The old adage, never ASS-UME springs to mind!! Anyways, I now have a much improved understanding (wouldn't be hard!) of the purpose and process of DRA and will be discussing this with colleagues later in the week. What I had planned to introduce is not a DRA at all and will be reviewing our plans in light of comments made in this posting. I have to say this is a great forum to help broaden the knowledge of novice H & S professionals and I thank everyone again for responding to my posting. Its a little embarrassing to find you're wrong in front of your peers but hey............we all live and learn.