Tolley's Risk Assessment Workbook Series: Utilities

Peter Ellis, Jaan Stanton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781135405090
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Risk assessment is the key to successful management of health and safety at work. Risk assessments are carried out in order to quantify and evaluate the significance of workplace hazards so that appropriate control measures can be put in place.Usually, a written record of the assessment is required, detailing the following information:
* The hazards – and how much risk is associated.
* The risk – with appropriate control measures.
* Deadlines – to follow-up the risk assessment to ensure the risk is managed.Failure to carry out risk assessments – punishable by law – is often due to lack of a suitable risk assessment system. Tolley's Risk Assessment Workbook – Utilities provides that system, both in the form of key background information on how to carry out a risk assessment – understanding relevant legislation and regulations – but most importantly by providing:
* Checklists – highlighting key industry-specific hazards and control measures.
* Questionnaires – highlighting key questions the risk assessor should ask when analysing the risk posed by the hazard.
* Action Plans – to ensure the risk assessment is followed up and completed.The Workbook offers a practical risk assessment system: it shows you how to comply with the law and gives you the foundations of a logical procedure that can be understood easily, put into placed quickly where necessary and adapted to your organisation's needs. Tolley's Risk Assessment Workbooks is a series of practical Workbooks providing you with all the information you need to conduct risk assessments in industry-specific areas including: Manufacturing, Retail, Leisure, Education, Offices, and Construction. A special Risk Assessment Workbook on Stress has also been developed in order to facilitate management of this issue which is of key concern to all organisations.

Part I

Risk Assessment

Introduction

Risk assessment is not a new idea. The principle of relating the amount of action required to the size of the problem was set out almost 30 years ago within the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. This was the first major piece of health and safety law to avoid giving directions and rely instead upon a management evaluation of what is needed to take reasonable care of the health and safety of both employees and anyone else affected by the work activities of an organisation. The employer could only do what is ‘reasonably practicable’ by evaluating the hazards and risks involved and applying appropriate controls.

The first health and safety law to require a specific evaluation, or risk assessment, was the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 1980 (SI 1980 No 1248). This was followed seven years later by Regulations controlling work with asbestos (Control ofAsbestos at Work Regulations 1987 (SI 1987 No 2115)) and then by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 (SI 1988 No 1657) (COSHH Regulations) which came into force in October 1989. In 1993 the set of Regulations based upon new European Council Directives on health and safety was based on the principle of risk assessment. In many ways, the most important of these was the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (1999 No 3242) (MHSWR 1999), introducing risk assessment as a requirement for all work situations other than those already covered by more specific assessment requirements.

The Regulations, although now revised and expanded from their original form, do not specify any particular method of carrying out risk assessments and, as a result, there are many different systems in use. Experience shows that the process does not have to be especially time consuming provided that a format is used that presents and records information in a clear and logical way. One of the few direct requirements of all the Regulations on the subject is that the results must be recorded in writing where there are five or more employees, so the employer’s chosen format is important in order to show that his/her assessments are suitable and sufficient.

Risk assessment is the key to successful management of health and safety at work. The law no longer provides a list of ‘what to do’: it now recognises that life is more complicated than that. Employers must work out for themselves what the problems are:

• the hazards — and how much of a problem each one is; • the risk — and then work out appropriate control measures.

This is the essence of risk assessment. It is a continuous process, and a full explanation of it in the context of the systematic management of health and safety can be found in the Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) publication H5G65 ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’.

Once the assessment is completed and recorded, the document becomes a blueprint for action to remove hazards and lower the risks associated with each work activity. Only then can the employer establish policies to control the risks he is now aware of, and set up procedures. Risk assessments also need to be reviewed, as conditions change over time. Management of Health and Safety at Work Regula- tions 1999 (1999 No 3242) (MHSWR 1999) and specific legislation specifies the need to review; this must be done:

• when new materials and equipment are introduced;

• following significant changes in work practices and premises, and when monitoring shows that control measures are not working properly.

Following accidents, the assessments should be reviewed for accuracy, to make sure that the circumstances have been taken fully into account.

The key is to identify significant hazards and risks. In some cases, where the situation changes rapidly because of the nature of the work, risk assessment will identify a range of hazards and their attendant risks and specify general controls, relying upon selection of employees and appropriate training to enable them to take control of specific risks as they arise.

Risk assessments can be made of premises, machines, processes and tasks. In some circumstances, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Part 1
• Part 2