A RAMS risk assessment is the assessment half of a risk assessment and method statement, the document a contractor produces for a task before it starts on site. The assessment answers what could cause harm, to whom, how likely and how serious, and what will be done about it; the method statement then says how the work is done with those controls in place. The HSE's guidance, cited below, gives risk assessment as five steps: identify hazards, assess the risks, control the risks, record your findings, review the controls, and says that if you employ 5 or more people you must record your significant findings. The risk assessment and method statement tool on this site builds both halves from your task's figures, free and without an account.
Identify the hazards, for this task on this site
A RAMS is task and site specific: the hazards are the ones this work meets here, working at height on this scaffold, this excavation, this plant, these services. A generic hazard list copied between jobs is the RAMS that a principal contractor rejects. The tool on this site takes the task's own hazards and counts them.
Assess and control
For each hazard, who could be harmed and how, how likely, how serious, and the control that reduces it, with the residual risk after the control stated. The control is what the method statement will describe step by step; an assessment whose controls are vague produces a method statement that is too.
Record, because the law asks
Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, cited below, requires every employer to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of their employees, and regulation 3(6) requires an employer with five or more employees to record the significant findings and any group of employees especially at risk. The recorded RAMS is that record for the task; the tool prints it in the shape a principal contractor expects.
Review
The assessment is reviewed when the task, the site or the people change, and after any incident. A RAMS dated for a previous job is a review missed. DailyLogDesk Pro keeps each RAMS against the job with its review and the incident reports that trigger one; the free tool prints the document.
Questions people ask about rams risk assessment
Is a RAMS a legal requirement?
The risk assessment is, under regulation 3; the method statement is the industry's way of showing how the controls are applied, and principal contractors require it under CDM.
Who writes the RAMS risk assessment?
A competent person who knows the task, with the people who will do it. The tool sizes it; the knowledge is the contractor's.
Is the tool free?
Yes: the risk assessment and method statement tool prints both halves without an account.