Principles of risk assessment - Introduction to Fire Safety Management - page 87

➤ Safety representatives
➤ Designers
➤ Process engineers.

its guidance Five Steps to Risk Assessment the HSE has
suggested the following stepped approach to assessing
risks to health and safety in the workplace:

Once the team has been assembled a list of all activities
within the chosen area, or list of areas, would need to be
compiled as part of the initial inventory preparation. (This
key issue is discussed in Chapter 14.)
It will normally always be necessary to support the
assessor and/or assessment team with appropriate
training to fulfi l their role. The exact nature and duration
of such training will be dependent upon their role,
existing levels of knowledge and the work activities being
assessed.
Any training designed to support a risk assessment
process is likely to include:

1. Identify the hazards

2. Decide who might be harmed and how

3. Evaluate the risks (in terms of likelihood and sever-

ity) and decide whether the existing precautions are
adequate or whether more should be done

4. Record the signifi cant fi ndings

5. Review the assessment and revise if necessary.

➤ Organisational policy on risk assessment

➤ Legal requirements for risk assessment and the

interpretation of legal standards

➤ How to identify hazards using sources of information

(HM Government guides, HSC ACoPs, safety event
reports and inspection reports)

➤ Evaluating risks using qualitative and quantitative

mechanisms
➤ The identifi cation and selection of appropriate con-
trol measures (taking into account those that are
reasonably practicable)

➤ Recording the assessment (forms, reports and

recording skills)
➤ Communication and dissemination of the outcomes
of the assessment.

While the above list is not exhaustive and any training
programme will not make a person or persons 'compe-
tent', a basic programme will provide underpinning know-
ledge from which an assessor can become competent.

Figure 5.5 HSE's Five Steps to Risk Assessment guide

In its own fi re safety guidance documents HM Gov-
ernment has adopted a very similar approach in its guid-
ance on how an assessment of fi re risks can be achieved
(Chapter 14).
The above steps identify the basic process of risk
assessment and are discussed in more detail later in this
chapter.
In order for organisations to conduct suitable and
suffi cient risk assessment and ensure that all risks
arising from work activities are identifi ed, evaluated and
effectively controlled it is necessary to adopt a system-
atic approach to conducting risk assessments. It is likely
that any such approach which require organisations to
perform the following stages:

5.5 The risk assessment process

Because of the fundamental role risk assessments play
as a starting point for developing safety management
systems, they must be conducted systematically. A sys-
tematic approach will help satisfy the law and ensure
that nothing which could present a risk is inadvertently
omitted. What appears to many to be the daunting task
of conducting all the necessary risk assessments for any
given work undertaking can be relatively easily achieved
by a straightforward progression through a number of
logical steps.
There are a number of different methodologies that
are currently used throughout industry and commerce
to achieve a systematic approach to risk assessment. In

➤ Preparing an activity inventory that clearly identi-
fi es the types of workplace/s, any activities and
processes that are to be assessed