Unit IG2: Risk Assessment
Learning outcome
Do a general risk assessment in their workplace, profiling and prioritizing risks, inspecting the workplace, recognizing a range of common hazards, evaluating risks and (taking account of current controls),recommending further control measures and planning actions.
Assessment criteria
Produce a risk assessment of a workplace which considers a wide range of identified hazards (drawn from elements 5-11 of the IG syllabus) and meets best practice standards ‘suitable and sufficient’.
Introduction
The aim of this assessment is for you to practically apply the knowledge and understanding that you have gained from your studies. To do this, you will need to complete a risk assessment of your workplace. Before you start the assessment, you must have completed your studies of the whole of the IG syllabus (elements 1 to 11).
The stages of the assessment are as follows:
1. Description of the organization and methodology used
2. Risk Assessment
3. Priorities 3 actions with justification
4. Review, communicate and check
The rest of this guidance tells you what you need to do to complete the assessment. The guidance also contains some helpful hints and tips (including information on how to complete the various forms). An assessment pack has been produced to provide you with everything that you will need to complete the assessment. This can be downloaded from the NEBOSH website (www.nebosh.org.uk). When completing your risk assessment it can be difficult to know how much detail is enough. So here are some useful tips. Your risk assessment should not be about creating huge amounts of paperwork, but should instead be about identifying sensible and proportionate measures to control the risks in your workplace. We want your risk assessment to be realistic and the level of detail to be proportionate to the level of risk in your organization. To help you with this exercise we have based this risk assessment format on the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) approach to risk assessment. The HSE is the British health and safety regulator. You can refer to the risk assessment guidance, examples and frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the HSE website http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/controlling-risks.htm and the completed example provided by NEBOSH in the assessment pack. We have also included in the forms approximate word counts for each section. These word counts should be used as a guide only and should not be seen as an absolute minimum or maximum.
You should include the following information:
1. The name of the organization;
2. Site location (you don’t need to give the full address, just the general location eg, New Delhi, India);
3. How many workers are employed by the organization;
4. A general description* of the organization, which must include information on products manufactured and/or services provided, the types of activities undertaken and shift patterns worked;
5. A description of the area to be included in the risk assessment; and
6. Any other relevant information etc., who has the day-to-day responsibility for health and safety in your organization. If you feel there is nothing relevant here, you do not need to include this in the description.
The description of the organization should be detailed enough to give the examiner (who may not be familiar with your industry) a clear image of your organization. EX, ‘garage-related activities’ is far too brief. Something like this would be better (extract from the worked example in the assessment pack)
