What is a risk assessment is answered by the HSE in five steps and by the law in one regulation. 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. For a small contractor it is a document per task: the hazards, who is at risk, the controls, the residual risk, the significant findings, a signature and a review date. The risk assessment template on this site prints it from your task, free and without an account.
Identify and assess
Walk the task where it will happen and list what could cause harm: the height, the plant, the services, the dust, the public. For each, who could be harmed and how, how likely, how serious. The walk is the assessment; the desk is where it gets written down.
Control
A specific measure per hazard, edge protection or isolation or an exclusion zone, and the risk that remains after it. The control is what the method statement will place at a step, and a control written as care is not one.
Record
The significant findings, the groups especially at risk, the author, the date, the reviewer and the review date. Required in writing at five or more employees; expected by every client and site regardless. The template on this site prints that record.
Review
When the task, the site or the people change and after any incident. A risk assessment dated for last year's job is a review missed. DailyLogDesk Pro keeps the assessment against the job and reminds the contractor at the review. 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
Who can write a risk assessment?
A competent person who knows the task, with the person who will do it; competence is knowledge of the work, not a certificate.
How long does one take?
The walk is most of it; the writing is minutes when the hazards are listed.
Is the template free?
Yes, without an account.