Prepare and approve a risk assessment

A risk assessment in Management AZ records the hazards of a workplace, a job or an activity, how serious each risk is now and after the measures, the measures already in place and the actions planned, who took part and how the workers were consulted. Each assessment is held against a rule pack: what your country's law asks of a risk assessment, turned into a checklist. An assessment cannot be put in force while a check the rule pack requires fails.

An assessment goes through these states: Draft while you prepare it, In review once it is submitted for approval, and In force once approved. A later version replaces it as Superseded, or it can be Withdrawn. No version is deleted: every version is kept.

Before you start

• Open the page in the menu: under Health & Safety, open Risk management and select Risk assessments. Any Management AZ user of your organisation can start, change, submit and approve an assessment.
• Your organisation's country decides which rule pack applies. If there is none for it, a banner says so and no assessment can be started. To read another country's rules, open the What the law asks tab, choose a Country and select Show.
• Read What the law asks for your country first. It names the document the law asks for, whether it must be written, how often it is reviewed, how long it is kept, who takes part, and every check an assessment is held against, with its legal basis. A required check stops the approval until it passes; a recommended one is only shown.
• Have to hand: the work and places the assessment covers, the hazards, the measures in place and planned, the people who carried out the assessment, and when and how the workers or their representatives were consulted.

The register

The Register tab lists your assessments by reference, one row per version that is being prepared or in force, with its Highest risk left, its Open actions and the Next review. A review that is overdue is shown in red. Show every version adds the superseded and withdrawn versions.

The summary counts the assessments In force and Being prepared. Under Reviews due it counts those in force whose review is overdue or falls in the next 60 days, and under Overdue actions those in force with a planned action past its due day. The watchlist names those In force with a high risk left. With none yet, the list says No risk assessment yet.

Start an assessment

1. On the register, select Start an assessment. The page Start a risk assessment opens and names the rule pack the assessment will be held against.

2. Give a Reference, unique in your organisation (the form fills in RA- and the year for you to complete), and a Title. Choose the Kind of assessment: a general workplace assessment, or one of the specific assessments, such as fire, noise, manual handling or young workers.

3. Choose the Scoring method: Simple 3 x 3 matrix, 4 x 4 matrix or 5 x 5 matrix (severity x likelihood). Only the methods your rule pack allows are offered; Croatia's, for example, allows only the 3 x 3 matrix. As the field says: Kept for every version of the assessment.

4. Say what it covers: the Work unit or activity and the Scope, and, if it does not cover everyone, the Sites, the Departments or the Occupation codes. Leave all three empty for an assessment of the whole organisation.

5. Choose who it was Prepared by. For an external prevention service or a consultant, name them in Service or consultant. Give the Number of workers: Some legal rules apply from a number of workers. Until you give it, every such rule applies.

6. Optionally, set Review every (months) and Next review by, and record the consultation now in Workers consulted on and What the consultation said. You can add them later.

7. Select Start the assessment. The page says The assessment is started. Add its hazards. and opens the new assessment, version 1, as a Draft.

While the assessment is a draft, Change details changes everything you gave here except the reference and the scoring method. If the reference is taken, the form says This reference names another assessment. Choose another.

Add the hazards

The Hazards panel starts empty: No hazard yet. Add the hazards of the work, or pick them from the catalogue for the occupations it covers. You can add up to 500 hazards to a version.

Add a hazard yourself

1. Select Add a hazard. Choose its Category and describe the Hazard, what can cause harm. Add the Possible harm.

2. Tick Who is exposed, including any group at particular risk, such as new, young, pregnant or breastfeeding workers, lone or night workers, and give How many people. Summarise the Controls already in place.

3. Rate the risk as it is: Severity and Likelihood. Risk now shows its score and level as you choose, and The assessment’s matrix beside the form shows the whole matrix.

4. If actions are planned, rate the risk expected once they are done in Severity after the measures and Likelihood after the measures, which give Risk after the measures. Rate both or neither.

5. Choose the Decision: Acceptable, Acceptable with the planned measures or Not acceptable: work must not go ahead as it is. You can leave it undecided for now, but the assessment cannot be approved until every hazard has one.

6. Optionally, give the Legal reference that applies and tick any Exposure recorded for health surveillance. Then save. The page asks you to add the hazard's controls next.

Add hazards from the catalogue

1. Select Add from the catalogue. The page Add hazards from the catalogue lists the catalogue's hazards For the occupations it covers, with their category, legal reference and the rating the catalogue gives them on your matrix. If the assessment names no occupation, it says The assessment names no occupation: choose a category, or add occupation codes to its details. Choose a Category and select Show to list another category.

2. Tick the hazards that apply and select Add the ticked hazards. Up to 50 are added at a time. A hazard already in the assessment is marked Added. One the catalogue does not rate has Rate and add instead: it opens the hazard form, filled in, for you to rate.

3. Back on the assessment, open each added hazard, check its rating for your workplace and give it a Decision: the catalogue cannot decide for you.

If nothing is ticked, the page says Tick at least one hazard that is rated in the catalogue.

How the matrix scores a risk

The score is the severity multiplied by the likelihood, and the score falls in a level. On the assessment, Show the matrix counts the hazards in each cell, now and after the measures. The levels of each method are:

Add the measures

Each hazard lists its controls under it. On a draft, a hazard taken from the catalogue may show Measures the catalogue suggests: select one to open the form filled in with it.

1. Under the hazard, select Add a control or an action. For a measure that covers every hazard, such as training, supervision or emergency arrangements, use Add a measure in Measures for the whole assessment instead.

2. Under Kind, choose Control already in place or Planned action. Choose the Type of measure (Elimination and substitution come first, protective equipment last.) and describe the Measure.

3. For a planned action, give its Priority, the Person responsible (or Or their name for someone not on the list, such as a contractor), when it is Due by, and the Resources or a Cost estimate with its Currency. Many rule packs require a deadline and a person responsible for every planned action, and some require its resources. Leave the priority and the due day empty for a control already in place, or the form says A control already in place has no priority or due date.

Planned actions also make up the Action plan, with their priority, the person responsible, the due day and their state. A risk Acceptable with the planned measures needs at least one control. A risk Not acceptable: work must not go ahead as it is needs a planned action.

Record the consultation and the participants

Both are in Participants and consultation.

• Consultation of the workers: while the assessment is a draft, select Record it (or Change details) and fill in both Workers consulted on and What the consultation said: who was consulted and what they said. Give both or neither: A consultation has both its date and what it said.
• Who took part: select Add a participant for each assessor, the prevention service, the occupational physician, the workers' representatives and anyone else who took part. Give their Role, Name and, optionally, their Organisation, Qualification and Statement. When your rule pack requires signatures, the form names the roles that must sign.
• When a participant has signed the assessment, tick They signed the assessment and give Signed on, the day and time they signed. This records a signature given outside Safety AZ, for example on the printed document; Safety AZ does not collect signatures itself. Until then the participant shows Not signed.

Participants can be added and changed while the assessment is Draft or In review. The consultation, like the hazards and measures, changes only in a draft.

Check what the law asks

On the assessment, What the law asks applies your rule pack's checklist to it and says how many checks pass. The checks that fail are listed first, each with what to do, what fails it and its legal basis. When a required check fails, the panel says the assessment cannot be approved until it passes.

Every country's rule pack requires At least one hazard is assessed, Every hazard has a decision and Every risk that is not acceptable as it is has measures. Which other checks are required depends on the country, for example The consultation of the workers is recorded, Every planned action has a deadline, Every planned action has a person responsible, The required signatures are recorded or The next review is scheduled. Some apply only from a number of workers.

Submit and approve

The steps are in Approval and review, at the bottom of the assessment.

1. Select Submit for approval. It is available once the assessment has a hazard. As the panel says: Submitting freezes the content for approval; participants and signatures can still be added. The page confirms The assessment is submitted for approval. and the assessment is In review.

2. To change the content after submitting, select Return to draft, with a Note if you wish. The page confirms The assessment is back to draft.

3. To approve, check or set Next review by. It is filled in for you when your rule pack or the assessment sets an interval between reviews, or when the assessment already has a date. It must be after today and, when your rule pack sets a longest interval between reviews, no later than it allows. Optionally, set Review every (months) and add a Note.

4. Select Approve: put it in force. While a required check fails, the button is disabled and the panel says The required checks above must pass first. The page confirms The assessment is approved and in force.

The assessment is now In force, with the approval's date and your name. When it is a revision, the version it revises becomes Superseded.

Once it is in force

What your employees see

Employees covered by an assessment in force see it in Employee AZ, under Safety › My risks: its hazards, their levels and decisions, the controls in place and the planned actions with their state and due day, and its next review. They never see a cost, the resources or the person responsible. They are asked to confirm they have read the risks of their job; Management AZ does not list those confirmations.

An assessment of the whole organisation is shown to everyone, and one that names occupations to the employees whose employee record has one of them. An assessment that names sites or departments is not shown to employees in Employee AZ. For what your employees see and do, see Read and confirm the risks of your job.

Follow up the action plan

On a version in force, select Follow up on a planned action to change its State. A planned action moves between Planned and In progress, to Done (give Done on) or to Cancelled (say why in the Note). Once it is done, it can be Verified (give Checked on and answer Was it effective?). You can also change the person responsible and the due day. An overdue action is shown in red, and its assessment is counted under Overdue actions on the register.

Review it

When the review comes round and nothing needs to change, select Record the review with the next Next review by (required: Give the date of the next review.). The page confirms The review is recorded: the assessment stays in force. Once the review date has passed, the assessment shows a banner asking you to record a review or start a revision.

Revise it

When something changes, select Start a revision, choose Why a new version, for example a change in the work, after an accident or after an inspection, and say What changes. The next version is drafted as a copy of this one. Change it, submit it and approve it as above. The version in force stays in force until the new one is approved, and only one revision can be prepared at a time.

Withdraw it

To take an assessment out of use, open Withdraw the assessment, say why in the Note (Say why it is withdrawn.) and select Withdraw. It is kept, marked withdrawn, and no longer counts as in force. A draft or an assessment in review can be withdrawn too.

Download the document

Select Download the document (PDF) at the top of any version. Safety AZ makes the document your country's law names, for example France's DUERP or Italy's DVR, in your language, on A4 landscape. It holds the assessment's facts, the method and matrix, the consultation, the hazards with their ratings, controls and decisions, the action plan, the participants with the signatures recorded, the checklist and the versions. For Romania only, the action plan follows the columns of Annex 7 to HG 1425/2006.

• A version that is not in force is marked so at the top of every page. Every page's footer names the rule pack and its status, and when and by whom the document was made.
• The document is made each time you download it and is not stored in Safety AZ. Keep your copy with your records, and have it signed where your law asks.
• If it cannot be made, the assessment page says The document could not be made right now. Please try again.

Versions and history

History, at the bottom of the assessment, lists its Versions with their states, and every step taken, with when and by whom: started, submitted, returned, approved, reviewed, withdrawn, and each follow-up and participant recorded. A version that was superseded or withdrawn is kept as it was and links to the version in force or being prepared. An assessment keeps the edition of the rule pack it was started under; when a newer edition exists, the assessment says so.

If something goes wrong

If you try to approve while a required check fails, nothing changes and the page names the checks still asked for.