Not always necessary in my view as long as managers and staff know of them and the resulting procedures etc.

Agree with Reed. I'm struggling with the question, do you mean making the RA on site in the first place or making a guess of what is on the site without actually going to the site to do the inspection in person?

In the waste industry the drive is on round / route assessment with case law in grounds maintenance/horticulture identifying the importance of site specific assessments. Generics are appropriate when identifying more strategic issues such as equipment selection and training needed.... I could go on at length .. Will respond to Amy pm s

Thanks for replies so far, sorry I was not very clear. The question is " should a hard copy of the risk assessment be present, on-site, at all times and available for inspection"? I've been trying to track down the legal position on this but so far no luck. The sites / tasks are risk assessed but the argument is; are they sufficient if the findings are made known to the supervisors and the RA's kept at base? Cheers

I think it depends on how much they are at base and how much they are on site. For people that carry out most of their time working at different sites I often suggest a file kept in each van that contains generic RA's, if needed site specific RA (where any site specific issues are identified), any safe working procedures, checklists etc. I know someone else has said they don't like generic risk assessments but I disagree for the type of work that you are describing. Using a digger is using a digger. Issues such as slopes can either be addressed in a site specific assessment or as part of the generic risk assessment (eg, seat belts to be worn on slopes etc). Site inductions and site specific risk assessments are not necessarily practicable.But then I am assuming that you are not talking about significant construction sites here?

I have developed several single A4 risk assessments which our arb crews complete before the job starts. Found one on the internet a few years ago and I have multiple forms now - pregnancy, manual handling arboriculture, ladders, etc. They all tick the HSE "5 steps to risk assessment" checklist and can be completed in about 3 - 4 min. The quicker the paperwork, the best chance of someone filling it in. Persons Who could be Harmed across the top, then it's normally 4 horisontal columns across the top with 8 down the side. Each one of the 4 boxes has an increasing risk flowing down the page, e.g. weight 0.5kg (1 point), 1kg (2 points), 2kg (3 points) and so on. One number is circled in all 4 columns, then the 4 numbers are added up (no multiplication needed). This creates a risk number (with existing controls in place - there is a place for this on the form too). The risk number also transulates to Low (4-8), medium (9-15), high (16-25) vhigh (26-32). There is a space for "Additional Control Measures" (then you circle 4 numbers again). Date, review date and signature and job done!

I think you need to ask the question 'why wouldn't you have the RA on site', if an accident occurred or for any reason a HSE inspector was to visit the RA would be ask for, if it could not be produced at that time it could cause difficulties. If the team is van based there must be room for a folder with all the job information including the RA. I’ve done some work for a service company where the engineers are sent to sites and work from vans, for each job a ‘job pack’ is produced a lot of it is generic, but it details what has to be done and how. The RA is also generic with space on the form for the engineer to complete site specific information where the generic controls do not fit or are not sufficient. This type of approach works very well for a lot of this type of short duration multi-site work.