Morning all I have been asked to write a risk assessment for the clearing of some earthworks/scrubland/weeds in a small area behind a school during the coming half term. This will involve the digger transporting the material and depositing it into one of our skips for removal to an inert landfill site. My contractor will be operating the digger and my trucks will remove the 'waste' to the landfill site. My contractor does not have a risk assessment for the use of his digger. At the moment I'm a little stuck as I have no experience of using a JCB style digger. Whilst there does not appear to be any info on the HSE website. I have considered the following; vehicle movements driver training digger overturn hidden utilities potential pedestrian activity location of skips to be removed off site Emergency service access to nearby houses hidden gas/electric utilities (there are no overhead obstructions/wires) pre-use checks on all vehicles Can anyone think of any other hazards that I might need to consider? All help appreciated for this now urgent job! Thanks DHM

The contractor should have a risk assessment for the excavator and I would be a bit concerned that he does not have one. If, as you say, the contractor is operating the equipment you need to assure yourself that the operator is competent for the task. I suggest you should have a Method Statement for the work with a RA included. The contractor should be involved in the process. The method statement would include, but not be limited to, ground conditions, traffic management, banksman, whether the work area is cordoned off, PPE, competency and training of staff, briefing before work begins, type of plant and so on.

Please do not think that I am having a go but I am concerned - If you want real support get in touch My strong advice is to get a different contractor and support for yourself as I am concerned that this is outside your competence area noting the fact that many such pieces of kit role over and people are killed waste control may also be something that is outside your competence area as you have not noted an important point I attended a school in the main holidays last year where children [they were not why I was there I just spotted them working] were trying to get tree roots up from a hole in the ground that they had dug - on looking at these tree roots [ they had been trying to cut them with the spades that were provided by the school -- they were puttinng up a fence and the average age was ~13] I found them to be LIVE 440KV cables! On that note I will leave this posting

DHM You have been given some good advice by others and have obviously had your thinking cap on. I would imagine that you may be in the situation where the job needs to be done and it will not occur without a risk assessment. It is difficult to assess which type of machine you are trying to describe the generic JCB description normally applies to a backhoe. However I suspect that the mini digger could in fact be a tracked excavator This puts you in a difficult position in that the duty probably belongs with the digger operator, under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which places a legal duty on all employers to carry out risk assessments. You could in effect be trying to carry out another's duty and put yourself in a difficult position especially if it was found not to be suitable and sufficient after an accident. However living in the real world where would the information come from fairly quickly? Well often small items of plant are hired and often they will provide some excellent information. I just came across http://www.self-drive.net/ which may assist you. There are specific hazards to think about with tracked excavators and they include visibility (or the lack of it) the overhanging of counterbalance on some models when slewed, ground stability, possible need for Banksperson and the correct attachment of buckets to name a few. I would resist becoming involved especially as the resultant action from the risk assessment will need to be carried out. You could potentially end up having to police the whole situation your self with no buy in from the machine operator. Sources of information if you would include http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/ http://www.citb-construc...skills.co.uk/sitemap.asp http://www.operc.com/ I hope that this assists

Thanks for the measured responses. I have decided to take appropriate action.