Rank: Forum user 
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The Council visited one of our sites recently and because the person for that site told him that they didnt have access to our risk assessments which was not actually correct, the Council worker has now requested we go to the site and carry out a risk assessment by standing outside with a blank piece of paper and going through the full building as he is not happy with our task based/location based multi site generic risk assessments. We have to complete this within 1 week which is a pain as we now have to travel over 400 miles in total to carry this out. Although he only has power in that Borough, to do this each site would take over 3 years as a project! How do you do yours?
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Rank: Super forum user 
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We have done activity based assessments in the past, which has resulted in 42 template forms! We're moving to a workbook style approach supplemented by simple hazard based assessments where there's someting unusual at a particular site.
Have you considered a Primary Authority partnership? It's not cheap, but once your primary authority has agreed your approach to safety any other LA questioning your method has to argue with the primary authority, rather than you. It means you can adopt consistency across sites and have some assurance that it will stand up to scrutiny, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-regulation-primary-authority
John
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 3 users thanked jwk for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Its hard to comment without context. Clearly there are a range of risk assessment process options but unless your approach is evidentially 'wrong' then its a bold move for an enforcement officer to actively instruct a business exactly how they should undertake it - particularly if they have not got the bigger picture.
The danger of multi-site task based generic approach is that it inevitably fails to accurately account for the working environment which means the process requires extra robust steps to be implemented by the workers themselves. Not a problem in theory but it does sound like something has gone awry here in practice and a risk been missed/unaccounted for?
The idea that the h&s team/manager has to visit each site personally to undertake location risk assessments is also fine until real world numbers of sites make it 'not reasonably practicable'.
You may not want to argue with the enforcement officer in question but the legal requirement is 'suitable and sufficient' only - no specific method is stated. If happy with principle but there are gaps in employee understanding/ability, work to improve them and explain to the officer how this will ensure business meets legal compliance.
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3 users thanked Xavier123 for this useful post.
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Rank: New forum user
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There has to be much more to the story than this. I cant see someone from the council leaping in to their car and coming to destroy your lives because one employee said they couldnt access risk assessments.
Do you not employ a consultancy service? what have they said?
IMO, Risk Assessments should be task based but it has to take the environment in to account. The only time I would allow a generic risk assessment is in regards to the use of equipment, ie, the use of a drill, with the proviso that a dynamic risk assessment is carried out on the environment before works are undertaken at each location you are going to use said drill as creating a new risk assessment every time you move is ridiculous.
Inside a building, that shouldn't be an issue, and you should be doing site specific risk assessments, not generic ones.
What you can do is create a risk assessment in two parts. A generic part that covers obvious risks, which you can distribute to all sites, and then have the local responsible person complete part 2 which would be additional site specific hazards.
It is an interesting question though. I once worked for a very large company (over 150 sites) that wanted to go with one single generic risk assessment for the entire company. I personally think that was stupid beyond belief but they had a very experienced consultant who seemed to fully back the idea. Whether or not they did it in the end I dont know.
Edited by user 28 August 2019 15:50:11(UTC)
| Reason: Because there forums are rubbish and just create a wall of text, sort it out FFS.
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2 users thanked stephen1974 for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Originally Posted by: stephen1974  There has to be much more to the story than this. I cant see someone from the council leaping in to their car and coming to destroy your lives because one employee said they couldnt access risk assessments.
Do you not employ a consultancy service? what have they said?
IMO, Risk Assessments should be task based but it has to take the environment in to account. The only time I would allow a generic risk assessment is in regards to the use of equipment, ie, the use of a drill, with the proviso that a dynamic risk assessment is carried out on the environment before works are undertaken at each location you are going to use said drill as creating a new risk assessment every time you move is ridiculous.
Inside a building, that shouldn't be an issue, and you should be doing site specific risk assessments, not generic ones.
What you can do is create a risk assessment in two parts. A generic part that covers obvious risks, which you can distribute to all sites, and then have the local responsible person complete part 2 which would be additional site specific hazards.
It is an interesting question though. I once worked for a very large company (over 150 sites) that wanted to go with one single generic risk assessment for the entire company. I personally think that was stupid beyond belief but they had a very experienced consultant who seemed to fully back the idea. Whether or not they did it in the end I dont know.
Response to above is below-----Im not sure how other people respond so its gone a bit boobs up! The reason for the visit was a RIDDOR report where an employee had sprained their ankle and was off for over 7 days. We have over 300 sites but do site specific fire risk assessments but to go down the route of general site specific risk assessment would probably take over 3 years as a project so dont believe to be achievable. We visit sites to carry out the generic assessments that mirror other sites so they are not done from an office. Edited by user 28 August 2019 15:58:05(UTC)
| Reason: Clarity
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Rank: New forum user
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My advice would be, if you have 300 sites you are a big enough company to have H&S managers on site who should be able to do this, or at lease regional managers who look after x amount of sites.
300 sites shouldnt take you 3 years to get done. We look after a similar amount and see the some every 6 months and the majority ever quarter with each site also having a person responsible for H&S though admittedly we can turn up and sod all have been done because that person is busy / lazy or under trained for the role.
You could make it easier for yourself and create a building template that looks at certain things, even if its a tick box type assessment, with space for additional comments. Software like Iauditor could be a useful tool for you, though someone whose good with excel could create their own.
What specifically did your risk assessments miss that made this guy say start again?
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1 user thanked stephen1974 for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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This looks a bit odd to me. Is the local authority person acting as a Health and Safety inspector with all the powers contained within the Act or is he just a general jobsworth? What risks are they concerned with? The duty is to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the risks to the health and safety of employees (and others) to which they are exposed whilst they are at work. For risk assessments under Health and Safety law you do not risk assess a building but the working going on inside of it (it’s a bit different for fire risk assessments). Has he issued an improvement notice under the Act or is he just gassing off? Has he made it clear what does he expect you to do? Has he set time limits etc? Why haven’t you asked for clarification?
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2 users thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user 
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Agree with what person above has said here, I manage health and safety in a national organisation too and I have had this from a local fire officer no official notice, tiny office low risk just turning up and admin stuff all day no visitors, fire risk assessment looked fine to me the training information instruction all there, property compliance stuff all up to scratch he waded in with your fire risk assessment is insufficient it needs to be redone withing a week, staff there said they would contact central health and safety he told them not to contact me because it is their responsibility not mine, nasty as you like with the team there but nice as pie to me on the phone his explanation made no sense couldn't weigh it up. Phone conversation with his superior found out he has been reported a few times for this and they would "have a word" You need to double check these things I think because you can just get a wildcard sometimes and if there is no apparent structure to the request, also my experience of council safety people they are completely incompetent and I am not sorry if that is anyone who is reading this because it is infuriating.
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1 user thanked kmason83 for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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When someone in enforcement says that a risk assessment is insufficient it is for them to explain why it is insufficient. They should explain how the risk assessment fails to provide the information that the employer (or other dutyholder) needs to ensure the Health and Safety etc of people working in some location. The reasons must be significant and fundamental to the risk assessment process. They cannot simply say they don’t like the format and they find it difficult to follow. Risk assessments are not recorded for the benefit of inspectors and auditors but to enable the employer to carry out their statutory duties. They idea that an inspector tells staff in an office to do the risk assessment themselves and not to get the employer’s central Health and Safety team involved beggars belief. I’d expect such an inspector to be given their marching order never mind a “talking to”
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Rank: Super forum user
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Maybe it's the same over zealous person in all these places?
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1 user thanked Kim Hedges for this useful post.
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