A risk assessment and method statement is the most rejected document on a UK construction site, and it is almost never the work that is wrong. It is the paperwork: generic wording, PPE used as the first control, a method with no sequence, two halves that do not agree. Measure yours against a set written the way a principal contractor's adviser signs off, and fix the five things that get RAMS sent back.
www.structassure.co.uk • Written by a chartered construction and quality professional
Each one is the same on every site in the country, and each is a quick fix once you can see it done properly. Our worked RAMS handle every one of them the way a principal contractor expects. For the detail behind these, the RAMS template guide works through the structure section by section.
A principal contractor's adviser can spot a template in seconds. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of the actual risks, so it has to name this task, this location, this crew and the real hazards. A document that could describe any job tells the reviewer nothing about yours.
Personal protective equipment is the bottom of the hierarchy of control, not the top. The controls have to work down the order: eliminate, then substitute, then engineer and isolate, then administrative controls, and PPE only for the risk that is left. A fall risk controlled by "wear a harness" and nothing else comes straight back.
A method statement is the job in order, step by step, each step naming who does it, the plant used and the control for that step. A paragraph describing the task in general is not a method a supervisor can follow or a reviewer can check. Each step should tie back to a hazard the risk assessment identified.
The risk assessment and the method statement are one document. Every significant hazard in the assessment has to be controlled somewhere in the method, and every step in the method that carries a risk has to appear in the assessment. When the two contradict each other, the reviewer stops reading and sends it back.
Blank names, no date, no record of the author's competence and no evidence the crew was briefed and understood it. A RAMS that is not controlled is not accepted. It has to show who wrote it, who checked it, who briefed the team and how they signed on before work started.
Every StructAssure document is written to one test: would a Tier 1 reviewer accept it as submitted? The free worked inspection and test plan lets you apply that test before you spend anything. It is a different document to a RAMS, but it is from the same stable and written to the same standard, so it shows you exactly what you are buying into.
A paired risk assessment and method statement for each of twenty construction trades, fully worked, cited to the current British Standards and regulations, in native Word. One price for all twenty, or a single trade if that is all you need.
Only need one trade? Pick a single risk assessment and method statement for £35 on the RAMS library page.
Need the health and safety paperwork around it too? The full document range covers permits, COSHH, toolbox talks and site records, and everything is in the Complete Site Quality System.
