RAMS Template for Construction: A Risk Assessment and Method Statement a Principal Contractor Will Accept

RAMS are the most rejected document in UK construction. A principal contractor's health and safety adviser will send back a risk assessment and method statement for reasons that are the same on every site in the country: it is generic, it jumps straight to PPE, the method has no sequence, and the two halves do not agree with each other. This article explains what a risk assessment and a method statement each have to do, how they should be structured, and what makes the difference between acceptance and a third revision.

Where the duty comes from

The risk assessment is a legal requirement. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to employees and to others affected by the work, and regulation 4 with Schedule 1 requires the preventive measures to follow the general principles of prevention: avoid the risk, evaluate what cannot be avoided, combat it at source, adapt the work to the individual, use technical progress, replace the dangerous with the less dangerous, prioritise collective measures over individual ones, and instruct the workforce. HSE's INDG163, Risk assessment: a brief guide to controlling risks in the workplace, is the plain-English guidance.

The method statement is not required by name in any regulation. It is how a contractor evidences the planning duty in CDM 2015 regulation 15, which requires contractors to plan, manage and monitor their work so that it is carried out without risks to health and safety, and it is how the risk assessment's controls are turned into a sequence people can follow. The principal contractor, under regulation 13, has to plan, manage and monitor the construction phase as a whole, which is why they review and accept each contractor's RAMS before work starts.

The risk assessment

Task-specific, or it is not suitable and sufficient

A risk assessment for "M&E installation" is not suitable and sufficient. One for "pulling 4-core 95 mm² SWA from DB-C02 to MCC-2 along the Level 1 corridor ladder" is. The scope section should describe exactly what is being done, where, by how many people, for how long, and what is excluded. Everything else in the assessment follows from that, and a reviewer who reads a generic scope stops reading.

Hazard, who is at risk, existing controls, additional controls

One row per hazard. For each: who is at risk and how, including other trades, visitors, the public and neighbours; the existing controls, meaning the site as it will be with the standard site rules in place; a rating with those controls; the additional controls this task adds; and the residual rating. The "additional controls" column is the assessment. If it is empty, the assessment has found nothing and said nothing.

The hierarchy of control, applied and recorded

Eliminate, substitute, engineering and collective controls, administrative controls, then personal protective equipment. PPE comes last because it protects one person and only while it is worn correctly. A risk assessment that jumps to PPE has not been done. Record why the higher levels are not reasonably practicable before dropping to the next, because that is the question the reviewer, and after an incident the inspector, will ask.

A rating that means something

A 5 x 5 matrix, likelihood times severity, rated with the existing controls and again with the additional controls, is the common approach and it works if the scale is defined and the thresholds are stated. For example: a residual rating of 15 or more is not accepted and the task is redesigned; 8 to 12 needs a named person to confirm the controls before work starts; 1 to 6 is managed by the supervisor. Without thresholds the numbers are decoration.

PPE, competence, emergency, review

The task-specific PPE beyond the site minimum; the competence and training required, by card or certificate; the emergency arrangements specific to this task, which is usually where rescue from height, confined space rescue, a services strike or electric shock changes something from the site emergency plan; and the review triggers, meaning when the task, location, people, equipment or conditions change, after any incident or near miss, and at a stated interval.

The method statement

The pairing

The method statement is the partner of the risk assessment and, where a contractor runs a quality system, of the quality method statement as well. The health and safety method statement carries the hazards and controls at each step, the permits, the people, the plant and the emergency arrangements. The quality method statement carries the sequence against the inspection and test plan, the acceptance criteria, materials approval and interfaces. Issue them together, keep the step numbering identical so that a step in one is the same step in the other, and do not repeat content between them. A reviewer who finds the risk assessment says one thing and the method statement another will reject both.

What it must contain

1. Details. Number and revision, project and principal contractor, contractor and package, activity, locations, the linked risk assessment number and revision, the permits required, who prepared it and when, and the programme dates and working hours.
2. Scope. What, where, how many people, how long, what is excluded, and the interfaces with other trades working in the same area at the same time.
3. Persons, roles and competence. Names, not just roles, with the competence or card held and a note that it has been checked.
4. Plant, equipment and PPE. Access equipment, plant, lifting equipment and accessories, portable electrical tools, task-specific PPE and hazardous substances, each with the inspection record or assessment it relies on.
5. Sequence of work with hazards and controls. Step by step, in the order the work will actually happen, with the key hazards and controls at each step and the permit that must be live or the inspection record that must exist before that step starts. This is the section reviewers read most closely, and the one most templates leave as a paragraph of prose.
6. Emergency arrangements specific to this task. What changes from the site emergency plan, the rescue equipment and the trained people.
7. Supervision and monitoring. Who supervises, how often they check the work against the method statement, and a list of the triggers that stop the job.
8. Briefing and sign-on. Every person doing the work is briefed on the method statement and the risk assessment before they start and signs. Anyone joining later is briefed and signs before they start. Changes are re-briefed and re-signed.
9. Approval. Prepared by, reviewed by the health and safety adviser or manager, accepted by the principal contractor.

Why RAMS get rejected

• Generic. A company-wide "electrical works" RAMS with the project name changed. The reviewer can tell in the first paragraph.
• Straight to PPE. Hard hat, gloves and glasses listed as the control for every hazard, with no evidence the higher levels of the hierarchy were considered.
• No sequence. The method is a description of the finished installation rather than the order of operations. A reviewer cannot tell what happens first, what permit must be live, or when the hazard arises.
• The two halves disagree. The risk assessment says a MEWP; the method statement says a tower. The risk assessment says isolate and prove dead; the method statement does not mention it.
• Vague controls. "Isolate and test" for work on a live board, rather than the Authorised Person, the permit, the instrument standard and the proving sequence.
• Numbers that are guessed. A manual handling row that says "heavy" rather than the cable weight per metre times the length. Take the figure from the data sheet; the crew will not believe an assessment that guesses, and neither will the reviewer.
• Interfaces ignored. No mention of the ceiling contractor in the same void, the scaffold being adapted overhead, or the live plant room next door.
• Not briefed, or briefed without a record. The document is accepted, filed and never read by the people doing the work. The sign-on sheet is blank.

Getting accepted first time

Write the scope precisely. Fill the additional controls column with controls that come from the hierarchy, not from the PPE store. Write the sequence as steps with the permit or record named at each. Make the two documents agree, step for step. Put the names in. Brief it and get the signatures before the first hour of work, not after. And use a template that shows a worked example, because the difference between a rejected RAMS and an accepted one is almost always visible on a single page when the two are side by side.