What is a risk assessment?
A risk assessment is a method which specifically looks at and assesses what could go wrong and determines how to act on these hazards to minimise any potential loss or injury within the workplace. Once risk assessments have been created they should be regularly reviewed and amended accordingly.
Why is a risk assessment needed?
It is essential that all organisations, even charities, carry out risk assessments for any activities you may undertake. Failure to write such assessments can result in heavy penalties including fines and even prosecution should a loss occur.
It is your charity/voluntary organisations legal responsibility to enforce a duty of care to your employees/volunteers. The law does not ask for all risks to be completely eliminated, however an organisation is required to protect its people as far as reasonably possible.
Simple steps to creating a risk assessment for your charity.
Identify the hazards.
This is simply highlighting ways in which people within the organisation could come to potential harm. It is important to take time when creating these assessments and gain the information from as many different sources as possible.
- Walk around the workplace and identify areas that are likely to cause harm.
- Ask your employees/volunteers for input.
- It may be a good idea to visit the HSE website (www.hse.gov.uk) for more information.
- Check any manufacturer’s instructions as they can be useful in pointing out hazards.
- Look at any previous accident and ill health records.
- Do not forget to include any longer term hazards.
Decide who is likely to come to harm.
This should be done for every hazard that is highlighted and it should be made clear groups of people that might be harmed.
For each group, you will need to decide how they could be harmed.
When doing this, it is important to remember:
- Certain groups of employees/volunteers from your charity will have specific requirements, for example new or young employees, expectant mothers and people with a disability of some kind may be at a particular risk.
- Members of the public if it is likely that they could be harmed by any of your activities.
Evaluate the risks and decide on what precautions are necessary.
Legislation states that organisations are required to carry out every action that is reasonably possible to minimise hazards occurring. Again, the HSE’s website might be of help in making these decisions.
The easiest way to do this is as follows:
- Analyse whether a hazard can be completely eliminated or whether it can be well managed so that the chance of any harm is reduced.
Record relevant findings and implement them appropriately.
Ensuring you implement findings effectively will make a big difference to your organisation and any risk attached to it. In order to do this correctly, it is crucial to record your findings so that these can be implemented within your charity.
To produce a sufficient risk assessment you will need to show:
- A comprehensive check was carried out.
- Sufficient research into who might be at risk.
- All hazards considered were dealt with and the number of potential people that could be affected has been taken into account.
- The precautions taken are reasonable and have ensured that any risk is low.
If the exercise identifies any improvements, you will need to create a plan of action to prove how you will implement these. It is important that any improvements are done correctly.
Review risk assessment and update where necessary.
Most organisation tend to make regular changes to their activities over a period of time and there it is important that you continue to review any risk assessments and update these when necessary.