Health and safety consultant: what a health & safety consultant does, how the competent person health and safety law requires is appointed, and where health and safety advice, health and safety experts, a risk assessment consultant, risk assessment companies and risk assessment services fit, including health and safety consultant birmingham and the health and safety advisors near me search

How health and safety, cdm and rams works

1. Work out whether the duty is yours. The general duty sits on the employer under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and on anyone conducting an undertaking towards people who are not their employees under section 3. A contractor asked for a risk assessment and method statement before going on site is meeting a client's gate, not a separate legal duty, and the two are answered by the same document.
2. Decide what you are actually buying. There are three distinct products sold under one name. A one-off document set, which is a general risk assessment and the method statements a job needs. An audit, which reads what you already have against the law and tells you where it fails. And a retained competent person, which is a monthly or annual arrangement where a named adviser answers questions, reviews assessments and turns up when something goes wrong.
3. Ask what the consultant will not do. A consultant writes and advises. They do not take the duty off you, they cannot sign your assessments as though they were the employer, and no certificate they issue makes the business compliant on its own. A firm that implies otherwise is selling reassurance rather than competence, and an inspector will still address the employer.
4. Check competence rather than membership. Ask what they have written for a business your size in your trade, whether they will name the person who does the work rather than the firm, and what happens when an enforcing authority asks a question in six months. Membership of a professional body is a floor, not an answer, and the same is true of an accreditation badge on a website.
5. Get the fee against a defined scope. Fees move on the number of premises, the number of activities that need their own assessment, whether a site visit is needed and whether the arrangement is one-off or retained. A quote for health and safety with no scope attached cannot be compared with another one, which is what the enquiry form on this page is for.

Paperwork and evidence

Common questions

Do I legally need a health and safety consultant?

No. The law requires a competent person, and that can be you or an employee. A consultant is one way of meeting the duty, and it is the usual way where the risks are not simple or nobody inside has the time.

When do I have to write my risk assessment down?

An employer with five or more employees must record the significant findings of the assessment, under regulation 3(6) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Below that the assessment is still required; only the record is not.

Is a consultant the same as a CDM adviser?

Not necessarily. CDM 2015 gives named duties to the client, the principal designer and the principal contractor on construction projects, and advising on those is a distinct piece of work from general workplace health and safety.

Does this site provide the consultancy itself?

No. This is an introducer. The enquiry goes to a consultant or contractor who does the work, and the terms are between you and them.

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