What is a risk assessment in construction is the general assessment made specific: one task, one site, the hazards found on the walk of that site, and the controls decided before the task starts. 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. 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. On a managed site it becomes the first half of the RAMS the principal contractor approves under CDM. The risk assessment template on this site prints it from the task, free and without an account.
One task, one site
The roof on this house, the trench in this footpath, the lift on this day. The hazards are the site's: the services found on the scan, the ground, the access, the trade next door, the school opposite. A hazard list that could belong to any site is not a construction risk assessment.
The rows
Hazard, who is at risk, how, likelihood, severity, the specific control, the residual risk, further action with an owner. Numbered, so the method can reference them. A control written as care is not a control, and a residual risk left blank is a row not finished.
The record and the review
Significant findings, author, date, reviewer, review date; reviewed weekly on a changing site and after any incident. An assessment dated for the previous job is a review missed, and the site manager will ask what changed since. The review is recorded whether or not anything did.
Into the RAMS
Each control placed at a step of the method statement; the pair submitted under CDM, cited below, and approved before the task starts. DailyLogDesk Pro keeps the RAMS against the job; the tools print it. From the vendors' own pricing pages, cited below: SafetyCulture lists its Premium plan at $29 per seat per month billed monthly or $24 billed annually, with a free plan for small teams; Contractor Foreman lists its Basic plan at $49 per month for one user. DailyLogDesk Pro is $29 per month for the whole site team.
Questions people ask about what is a risk assessment in construction
Who writes a construction risk assessment?
The contractor's competent person, on the site, with the operative who will do the task.
How is it different from a general assessment?
The general one covers what every job shares; this one covers what this site adds.
Is the template free?
Yes, without an account.