The columns never change but the hazards do, and a generic document is rejected because its controls describe nowhere. What follows is the hazard list each of these jobs actually has, in the order somebody meets them, so the assessment you write from it is about your site rather than a template's. Each one is a starting point to correct on a walk round, not a document to sign.
A construction job, in the order the hazards arrive
Access and the public boundary first, because it is what the neighbours and the inspector see: the hoarding, the gate, the vehicle movements and the pedestrian route past them. Then the existing structure, which on refurbishment means the asbestos question answered before anything is disturbed, the services located and proved dead, and the stability of what is being opened up. Then the work itself: falls from height and through openings, excavation collapse and buried services, lifting operations, plant and people in the same space, cutting and the dust it makes, noise and vibration exposure over the day, cement and wet trades, and manual handling of materials that arrive on a pallet and end up carried. Then the site conditions everyone forgets to write down: welfare, lighting, weather, working alone once the site has emptied, and who is on site after the principal contractor has gone.
A bar risk assessment, where the hazards are late, wet and heavy
The floor is the first row, wet and often crowded, with the glass wash area and the entrance in the rain as the two worst spots. Then glass itself, broken and swept and in the bin. Then lifting: kegs, crates and bagged ice, moved along a route that usually includes a step. Then heat and the kitchen if there is one, and the back of house door everybody props. Then people: intoxicated customers, the lone person locking up, the walk to the night safe, and violence and aggression, which is a real hazard rather than a box and asks for decisions about door staff, last orders and a way to call for help. Cleaning chemicals, especially line cleaner, get their own substance assessment. Last, fire: the escape route through a busy room, and who gets the customers out.
A pub risk assessment template, and what it has to add for the cellar
Take the bar list and the cellar brings four hazards of its own. Carbon dioxide from the gas and from the beer itself, which is heavier than air and collects at the bottom of an unventilated cellar, so ventilation and, where the risk warrants it, an alarm. The trapdoor or the drop, which is a fall hazard whenever it is open. The lift or the ramp and the manual handling of moving kegs down and empties up, which is where most pub injuries happen. And the cold, the wet and the electrics together in one room. A template that treats the cellar as storage has missed the only place in the building where somebody can be overcome by a gas.
A work at height risk assessment for a short job
Short does not lower the duty and the sequence is the same. Can the work be done without going up at all, from the ground or with a pole. If not, is there an existing safe place to work, a proper platform or a tower, and only where those are not reasonably practicable does a ladder come into it. Then the rows: the fall from the equipment, the fall through or from an edge or a rooflight, the ground conditions and the footing, anything or anybody below, the weather, the tools being carried, and rescue, which is the row nobody writes. Record the duration and why the access chosen was appropriate for it, because that is the judgement somebody will question afterwards.
A manual handling risk assessment pdf, and why the form is not the point
Any format is fine and the regulator publishes its own tool for scoring a task, but a completed form on file changes nothing by itself. The assessment looks at the task, the load, the working environment and the individual, and the useful output is one of three decisions: the handling is avoided, usually by a delivery arrangement or a piece of equipment; the load or the route is changed; or the task stays and is done in a specified way by people trained for it. Repetition and the carry distance move the risk more than the weight does, which is why a fifteen kilo box carried thirty times is the assessment that matters and the one people leave out.
An electrical risk assessment template, and the isolation it has to name
The general rule is that work is done dead, so the assessment is mostly about proving that: which circuit, isolated where, locked off by whom, proved dead with an approved voltage indicator, and who holds the key. Then the rows around it: other circuits still live in the same enclosure, stored energy, the test instruments themselves, working near rather than on, portable equipment and its condition, and the arrangements for anybody else on site who might switch something back on. Live working is the exception and the assessment has to record why it was unavoidable, what precautions applied and who was competent to do it. A template whose control column says a competent electrician will be used has assessed nothing.
A hot works risk assessment template, and the permit that goes with it
Hot works means welding, cutting, grinding, soldering, torch applied roofing and anything else producing flame, sparks or heat, and the risk is almost never the operative. It is the fire that starts in the void, the adjacent room or the insulation, discovered after everybody has left. So the assessment produces a permit: the exact location and duration, combustibles removed or protected to a stated distance, hidden voids checked on both sides of a wall or floor, extinguishers present, the fire alarm considered where a detector could be triggered or, worse, isolated, a named fire watch during the work, and a specified watch period afterwards, commonly an hour with a further check later. A permit that stops at the end of the work has missed when these fires actually start.
A confined space risk assessment template uk law will recognise
A space is confined by its risk rather than its size, so the first decision is whether it is one at all: a tank, a silo, a pit, a chamber, an unventilated cellar or a duct where there is a foreseeable specified risk from atmosphere, liquid, free flowing solid, fire, heat or something else. The law's order is then strict and the assessment has to follow it: do not enter if the work can be done from outside, and where entry is unavoidable, a safe system of work plus emergency arrangements are BOTH required before anybody goes in. The rows are atmosphere testing and continuous monitoring, ventilation, isolation of anything that could fill or start, access and egress, communication, and a rescue plan that does not depend on somebody following the casualty in, because that is how most confined space deaths take a second person.
Questions people ask about risk assessment construction
Can one assessment cover several sites?
For an activity that travels unchanged, yes: the generic assessment carries the hazards and controls of the task, and it is completed on the day by a short site specific check of what is different here. That is normal practice for mobile trades. What cannot be done is treating the generic document as the whole assessment, because the access, the other occupants and the site conditions are exactly where the risk varies. Keep the generic version and the site check together, because the second is the evidence the first was applied.
Who writes the assessment when several firms are on one site?
Each employer assesses their own work, and the principal contractor coordinates them so that one trade's controls are not undone by another's. The gaps appear between the documents rather than inside them: the scaffold altered by somebody else, the extraction switched off, the fire alarm isolated for hot works while another trade is in the roof. Those interfaces are the coordinator's to manage, which is why the assessments have to be shared rather than just collected.
Does a small business with fewer than five staff still write it down?
The assessment is required whatever the size, and the duty to record the significant findings applies from five employees. Below that the sensible answer is still to write it down, because nothing else evidences that it was done, it takes an hour, and every client, insurer and letting agent that asks will ask for the document rather than the reasoning.