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Health and Safety Risk Assessment For Ground Investigation (AGS, 2010)
Health and Safety Risk Assessment For Ground Investigation (AGS, 2010)
Modern health and safety practice identifies Risk Assessment as the basis for risk management.
Managers are required to identify the threats to their workers (and others) health and safety, and
then to take appropriate steps to ensure protection. That is what is meant by doing everything
reasonably practicable to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees and anyone else who
may be affected by the work being carried out as detailed in the Health and Safety at Work etc Act
1974. The method employed to identify the risks and suitable controls is a risk assessment.
Many individual Regulations require risk assessments to be carried out including those covering
noise, ionising radiation, hazardous substances and manual handling. The Management of Health
and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended ) act as a catch all by requiring for all other
significant risks that suitable and sufficient assessment of health and safety risks shall be
made to enable appropriate control measures to be put in place.
The purpose of this procedure is to ensure that the risk assessment system is understood and
utilised to a suitable and sufficient standard in all operations.
Guidance
There are six categories of risk to consider:
Accident Risks which can lead to physical injuries
Physical Risks such as noise, vibration, excessive heat, radiation
Chemical Risks the wide range of hazardous substances
Biological Risks such as the organism which causes Weils Disease
Ergonomic Risks such as from manual handling
Work Organisation Risks such as stress or excessive working hours
If the risk can be alleviated further with relatively little effort, then control measures should also be
The priority for all risks is to identify them as early as possible, seek to design them out or
lower, and address the residual risks as early as possible in the development of the health
and safety plan.
Apply control measures to each initial risk requiring action and the residual potential for harm so as to
reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
The listing of control measures should be carried out in parallel with Method Statement production
until the initial risks have been reduced to acceptable levels. At the end of this process, risks with
any residual potential for harm are the Site Risks to be transferred to the Site Safety Plan (SSP)
The various sheets should be sequentially numbered as appropriate. Use as many sheets as are
necessary to record all the hazards, risks and controls.
The SSP MUST NOT be used to re-issue / re-write the risk assessment or associated method
statement in detail it should summarise the most important key issues that are essential to the
operatives completing the works.
It is imperative that any Permits which have been drawn up as a part of the process (e.g. Permit to
Dig) and as a result have become part of the operation control measures, are clearly identified and
their contents discussed during the briefing to ensure that the operatives are aware of specific risk
controls.
Prior to issue, the completed SSP must be signed off by the author and the person(s) designated to
approve the document.
It must then be available and if possible displayed at the workplace (and protected from the weather)
having been utilised as the focus for a tool box talk on the task at hand prior to work starting. It is
imperative that those briefing the SSP (i.e. the Responsible Manager) ensure that the information
and detail contained within the document is understood by those operatives completing the works
and that a copy of the SSP is displayed at all times with regular reviews and amendments taking
place as necessary.
Once the whole Risk Assessment document is complete and signed off for use, the RAMS Register
should be updated as necessary to indicate that the process is complete.
Guidance
The SSP should only contain the most important aspects of the task and should not therefore be a
complete copy of the initial risk assessment itself. Other pertinent information may be added such
as:
The association of any Permits that may be required and operated during the task will help staff
appreciate the level of risk associated with the works. The importance of permit and associated
controls compliance should be reinforced and linked back to the SSP for completeness. Wherever
any doubt is shown, the whole operation (including the RAMS, SSPs and any permits) must be
worked through again with the operation not taking place until full understanding is demonstrated.
As previously stated, each completed SSP must form the basis of a toolbox talk briefing session to all
operatives and supervisors prior to commencing the particular operation. Toolbox talks are part of
training and should be recorded.
environment. The task itself should also be subject to ongoing monitoring and review arrangements
as significant changes may result in the review of the associated assessment.
All reviews and / or revisions to the document must be logged and any changes made communicated
to the workforce.
When reviewing assessments completed by third parties such as sub-contractors or suppliers, the
same basic information should be available through their own assessment procedure. Use the form
as a method of cross-checking the level of detail they have provided and consider what elements
would have been included should your company have completed the exercise. In any case the
assessment must be (in the eyes of the writer and reviewer) suitable and sufficient.
Communication
Guidance
Risk Assessments or relevant parts, must be communicated effectively and in a comprehensible
manner to those likely to be affected by the work, including:
Although every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information and validity of the guidance given
in this document, neither the members of the Safety Working Group, nor the AGS accept any responsibility for
mis-statements contained herein or misunderstanding arising herefrom.