I did mine with RoSPA, excellent

While the organisations mentioned above are well known and have a good reputation, its vital that the individual who carries out the exercise is competent with the appropriate experience etc in the field being assessed. I have had a previous bad experience. My previous organisation hired one of the organisations mentioned to re-risk assess the whole site ahead of my appointment, based on a recommendation from the trade association, as the individual had carried out work with other members and the feedback was favourable. On my first day, I arrived and walked straight into a major accident investigation, reported in this thread previously. http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...spx?g=posts&t=106122 The incident resulted in improvement notices being issued and prosecution. The HSE investigation concluded that the RA was insufficient as it had not identified the hazard that caused the injury, resulting in an improvement notice to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments to determine machinery guarding standards throughout the whole factory. The only hazards identified on the section where the accident happened were housekeeping issues, yet as the inspector pointed out, they could see rotating shafts and moving belts that they would have expected a competent assessor to pick up. A quick straw pole of other RA's carried out quickly identified other obvious hazards not referenced in the RA, hence the improvement notice. I was horrified at the standard of the RA's that had been produced. The individual from the organisation had completed about 80% of the work that they had been requested to carry out and only half of the invoices had been paid. The individual was told the project was terminated and that no further invoices would be paid. The HSE tried to interview the assessor, but they went to ground and did not return any correspondence. The HSE even suggested to me that there was a possibility of a joint prosecution against the company, the assessor and the organisation they represented. In the end it was only the company that was prosecuted, but the fact that they had hired an "expert" from a reputable organisation, based on recommendations through the trade association were used in mitigation. The mitigation was accepted by the prosecution and the penalty imposed was small in comparison to similar cases that have gone before the courts.