Hands up if this sounds in any way familiar. You join a new company, or audit a department / site / function, or investigate an incident and you ask to see their Risk Assessments. You're presented with a landscape-orientated A4 sheet of paper or two with a fantastic tie-line, multiplication table, traffic light system or some other fancy way of scoring but the last couple of columns on the sheet are blank. "We're not very good at closing our actions out" you're told by the person, who is cringing slightly and wringing their hands. Ever stopped to think why? The answer lies in simple semantics; they have assessed the risk but not completed the Risk Assessment, meaning the implementation of the identified controls, other than the cheap, easy, "low-hanging fruit" that doesn't really add much value but looks good on the completion rate KPI. There is a significant amount of confusion between Risk Assessment (the whole shebang) and Assessing the Risk (the easy bit) among those who have only had a few days of training. It probably won't go down too well with the purists or those scared by change, but why not rip up the term "Risk Assessment" altogether and replace it with something, anything that takes away that pathetic excuse of "well, we've assessed the risk ..." "When is a risk assessment not a Risk Assessment?" Try asking this question next time you see the blanks ...

Couldn't agree more. I try not to use the word, I normal will ask how do you control the hazards you have here etc

RAMS! oh how the construction sector loves its generic non-specific paperwork, seen many of these in my time from different firms (and quite a few drafted by the same consultant or several people with an identical name and post nominals - change the name, send the invoice) Totally agree on the RA scenario - a pretty table with some poor under funded and under resourced managers name in the frame to solve every whim documented, should actually name the CEO since he signed the H&S Policy Whilst we are on the subject an (M)SDS is NOT a COSHH sheet/assessment regardless of how many times the lads on the tools show me reams of out of date paperwork in their site folder - rant over.

On the other hand.................my experience is that "actions" are often not expensive, and mostly involve changing people's behaviour (often managers!) In any management system, is is always the case IMHO that finding faults or opportunities for improvement is "easy". The trick is, putting things right and following these great ideas up. So, this business of not following up is common to management generally - a good manager or system follows up actions and ensures they are closed out. Really I believe that this is not a RA issue, it is s general management issue.

I would like to add to the rant so called "Designer Risk Assessments" produced by Designers/Architects for construction projects. I have finally persuaded the Design team I work for they are producing a Hazard Register not a risk assessment and that they are responsible to design out the hazard or identify a safe control method and not merely say the PC will sort it out

I have no problem with the name 'risk assessment'. The problem arises from its misinterpretation. “A risk assessment is nothing more than 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.” - Taken from: “Good Practice Information provided by EU-OSHA”, September 2009. What follows from the risk assessment is 'risk management', i.e. the action that needs to be taken to remove or reduce the risk to an acceptable level (whatever that might be). This is where the problem often arises due to inaction. Chris

As noted by an earlier contributor:"A risk assessment is a thought process, and not a piece of paper. The document we all call a risk assessment is merely the record of that process." for unusual, one off projects I encourage our students to record our discussions in an email as confirmation of the risks and controls we discussed, and the email serves as the record. on some occasions it can simply be a sheet of paper with sketches and notes of the project plan, with an email to confirm the method statement and referring to the paper copy as well. it is then irrefutably related to the task under consideration I do agree that names are often problematic - I personally think 'elf & safety' is tainted as a phrase, and we should all re-brand as 'physical risk managers', but what would I know......

Yes and too easy to criticise after an incident. However, when we consider that risk probability varies according to human behaviour the best we can often do is use our judgement based on experience and knowledge plus a little crystal ball gazing. Our own abilities in each is unique.

The purpose of a risk assessment is to assess the risks, but the purpose of assessing the risks is to control them and it does not make sense to separate the two things. I insist that recommendations from risk assessments are turned into actual agreed actions that are logged and tracked. The other one I get is "managing the risk" as in: Me: You can't just send them up there without anything at all to stop them falling. Supervisor: But can't we manage the risk? Me: Yes, how are you going to manage it? "Manage the risk" = acknowledge it and do nothing about it.

As an expansion of some earlier replies methinks the best expression is 'Risk Management'. It encompasses all the elements of risk assessment PLUS taking measures to ensure that any actions/precautions identified by the assessment process as being appropriate are actually put into practice. As well as being a more accurate expression, the fact that it includes the word 'management' probably makes it more palatable to line managers (ranging from supervisors to very senior ones). Come to think of it, risk management is an inherent part of the role of line managers; They know best (or ought to know best) the workplaces, processes, activities and workpeople for which/whom they are responsible and therefore are the most appropriate people to be routinely managing risks along with other aspects such as production and quality/level of service, etc. This includes talking to and listening to people of all levels within their area/s of responsibility. By contrast, OSH professionals should NOT be making risk assessments or directly managing risks! Some forum users might interpret this assertion as heresy, so I'd better add that the role of OSH professionals is very much about promoting, supporting and monitoring risk management to try and ensure that it is effective. This consists of using their knowledge, experience and specialist expertise in ways which include the following: i) providing training and guidance about risk management, ii) responding to requests from line managers and others who raise queries about particular problems, iii) visiting workplaces, observing activities/processes and liaising with workers and line managers to try and determine if the workplaces and what occurs or is done in them are reasonably safe and healthy, and iv) assessing related risk assessments, method statements, etc. to see if they appear to be satisfactory or merit amendment. There's a strong argument that having workplaces and activities which are reasonably safe and healthy in practice is much more important than the contents of risk assessments, etc., on paper and/or electronic screens! This comment is based on an approach which HSE inspectors were encouraged with regard to inspecting sizeable premises during the 1980s. In view of the number of premises we had to inspect each year, we were told that it wasn't appropriate for us to spend valuable time inspecting each and every part of a large workplace, especially if we discerned that it was well managed and had reasonably good standards of safety and health. As we had a finite amount time for planned inspection work (which could be reduced by unplanned extensions of time needed for investigations and enforcement work), such time would be better spent identifying and dealing with premises which had poor standards. Though it's many years since I was with HSE, I understand that HSE further refined the above approach through a policy whereby inspectors i) no longer carried out routine inspections of offices and other premises classed as "low risk" and ii) further reduced the frequency of inspection visits to premises with good standards. Now, in keeping with the title of this thread, here are some admittedly provocative questions: Do OSH professionals with titles like 'health & safety manager' give line managers in their organisations an erroneous impression that they don't have to bother much about managing health and safety themselves because the responsibility for doing that rests with the health & safety manager?! If such a title is thought to be misleading, how can this be corrected? Should this include changing to a title which doesn't include the word 'manager'? If so, can anyone proffer suitably appropriate alternative titles? Graham B

Hear, hear Invictus. It is a case of assessing SIGNIFICANT risks in the workplace, not every possible conceivable tiny little papercut potential. I have seen RAs for using the photocopier in one place I worked. To be honest, it is these sorts of things that got me interested in H&S in the first place - the sheer lunacy of some peoples interpretations of the law. As an aside: I remember reading about a case where a retired widow took it upon herself to maintain the roundabout near her house. She had done this happily for months when some council safety bod decided to ban her as it was dangerous. After months of tooing-and-froing, the argument was passed to another sfety person at the council who came up with the solution of providing the widow with a high-vis vest in light of her service to the locale, after which she was allowed to continue, provided she wore the PPE

As I have already alluded to - here in lies the problem what is 'significant' to one person isn't significant to someone else. Hence why the RAs are very subjective in many areas. Things aren't helped by the personal injury claims industry, which support fairly trivial injury claims - which some organisations then try to counter act by 'risk assessing everything' - which seems to be the way in the public sector/education sector

Wow, some spleen venting there ! Baffles me why people cite "the photocopier" as a harmless bit of kit. I've investigated quite a nasty burn from someone "fiddling" inside one trying to get a piece of stuck paper out (the office manager!) and another where someone got their hair stuck inside the moving bits, so they are hardly "harmless"! Back to the point though. A judge once told me that an incomplete Risk Assessment is worse than no Risk Assessment at all. "Better to find a single hazard and control it fully than to identify a dozen and doing nothing about them". Identifying the hazard and the corrective / preventative actions and not addressing them puts the risk assessor "in receipt of guilty knowledge", particularly if the risk assessor has some type of qualification, and with the Sentencing Guidelines now concentrating on "creating a risk of harm" rather than the hazard coming to fruition I think it's time we took a good look at the the whole Risk Management scenario and redefined some of the way-outdated terminology that people hide behind when the failures of risk management come to light.

Dave, I mention the photocopier, as I think it is a good example of where H&S can be seen as being over-zealous by colleagues. Paper jams are mostly the result of cheap machinery or cheap thin paper. Of course, if you start fiddling around inside machinery to retrieve your paper there is a risk, but significant - really? One person out of how many over how many years? Nasty burn, was he hospitalised, off work? No spleen venting from anyone on here, it is a discussion forum so opinions will vary. I am prepared to be proved wrong, if someone can show me there are significant dangers from daily photocopier use.

A Photocopier?? We know that a person could get hurt by one, but really come on ? The designers will know this and put will in safe guards, for example special tools required to open panels, were electrical wires etc etc. Paper jams are foreseeable risks and they would know that people will open panels etc, but the real danger areas should be more difficult to access? I have worked hard over the years talking about "sufficent risks" are what we need to worry about....so no way I am going to include a photocopier, in my risk management systems

There was thread a long time ago on a similar topic where someone posted the HSE did not want 'risk assessment' explicitly included within legislation. Reading the comments it's plainly obvious why and if it is true I would concur with the HSE's preference. This whole issue of risk assessment has morphed into fire breathing dragon. I was recently asked by my wife to assist with their company sports day by providing a risk assessment and method statement! The only 'hazardous' activity was a charcoal BBQ...sometimes I cringe when I hear the words 'elf & safety.