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Risk Assessment OBU-HAS-PROC-07.00

1. Purpose

1.1 There is a duty under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments for work activities or processes at work.

1.2 This procedure (and accompanying guidance document) describes the process to be used in Oxford Brookes University (OBU) to identify, assess and control health and safety (H&S) hazards and risks for the significant risks associated with the activities carried out by staff and students working within OBU or off-site. It also covers the risks to the health and safety of persons not in the employment of OBU arising out of or in connection with activities carried out by the University.

Health and Safety enquiries

+44 (0) 1865 603060

healthandsafety@brookes.ac.uk

2. Scope

2.1 This procedure applies to all work and study-related activities carried out by staff, visitors and students at OBU and is designed to provide instruction on the process of how to complete general health and safety risk assessments. Term contractors are responsible for producing their own risk assessments and should provide these to their Oxford Brookes contact as requested. 

2.2 Activities involving hazards such as chemicals (COSHH), radiation, manual handling, explosives, etc. may require additional, specific risk assessments. Details of these requirements will be contained in the relevant university procedure.

2.3 An OBU risk assessment is not required if staff or students carry out activities on a site belonging to another university or employer and those activities are under the control of the host organisation. Where the activity is considered a ‘placement or secondment’, the hosting organisation will be required to provide information (including a risk assessment) to ensure the health, safety and welfare of students and staff on their site. Field trips under the authority and control of Oxford Brookes staff do require a risk assessment to be completed and further advice can be found in the relevant procedure.

3. Definitions

3.1 Hazard: anything that has the potential to cause harm in the form of injury or illness, including mental illness (to employees, students, visitors, members of the public and/or contractors).

3.2 Risk: the measure of both the likelihood and consequence of an adverse event occurring, such as injury or illness to an individual arising from exposure to a hazard. 

3.3 Risk Assessment: a systematic/formal assessment of a work activity that can cause injury or harm, along with a process to determine the measures to be put into place to control the risks.

3.4 Risk Rating: the process of applying the risk assessment matrix, (based on a calculation to determine the consequence and likelihood) based on the existing controls in place. 

3.5 Risk Matrix: a tool for qualitatively analysing the risks associated with health and safety hazards and determining the risk rating.

3.6 Manager: a person who has responsibility for the line management of staff or supervises students. 

4. Responsibilities

4.1 Pro-Vice Chancellor Deans and Directors of Services are responsible for: 

  • Ensuring there are appropriate processes and resources in place for the completion of risk assessments for operations/activities under their control and that risks are appropriately controlled. Risk Assessment Form (OBU-HAS-FORM-7a.00) should be used.
  • Authorisation of risk assessments, where the overall risk matrix score is considered by the assessor to be an ‘Unacceptable Risk’ after controls have been put in place. 
  • Where considered appropriate authorisation of ‘Unacceptable Risks’ can be passed to the Vice-Chancellor’s Group.

4.2 The prime purpose of a risk assessment is to manage and minimise the risks associated with an activity to as low as reasonably practicable to staff, students, visitors, members of the public, and contractors.

In practice, day-to-day responsibility for this lies with managers who must ensure that risk assessments of operations under their control (including student activities) are undertaken by a competent person.

4.3 Managers are responsible for ensuring that:

  • Risk assessments have been carried out for all activities for which they have responsibility 
  • Authorising those risk assessments completed by their direct reports.  
  • Where they are not a subject matter expert with regards to the content of  a risk assessment they should refer to someone who is, before authorising. Further advice can be sought from the H&S team 
  • Risk assessments are reviewed in line with the requirements of Section 7 
  • Actions required to manage and reduce risks, as indicated by assessments, are completed in accordance with agreed timescales
  • The findings of the risk assessment are communicated to all staff, students and relevant parties who may be affected by the task/activity.
  • Employees and students have adequate information and training so that they understand the hazards, the reason for the control measures and how to use them 
  • Employees, students, visitors and contractors have appropriate levels of supervision and monitoring

4.3 Staff are required to participate in the risk assessment process and support management in the development of suitable and sufficient risk assessments.

4.4 Research students (including taught) are permitted to complete risk assessments but the risk assessments must be authorised by the student’s supervisor.

4.5 Undergraduate students (including taught) may participate in the risk assessment process, but all assessments must be reviewed and authorised by a member of their teaching staff or a member of the technical team.

4.6 The Health and Safety Team are responsible for:

  • Providing advice, support, guidance and training with respect to the risk assessment process
  • Undertaking periodic inspections and audits of the risk assessments to ensure appropriate standards are being maintained.

5. Procedure

5.1 A risk assessment will be required for those activities that present a hazard to either staff, students, contractors or visitors. When completing a new risk assessment or reviewing an existing one, the form OBU-HAS-FORM-07a.00 is to be used. Detailed guidance is provided on how to complete a risk assessment in OBU-HAS-BPG-07.00 but as minimum they must identify:

  • the associated hazards
  • who might be harmed and how
  • what you're already doing to control the risks
  • what further action you need to take to control the significant risks
  • who needs to carry out the action
  • when the action is needed by

5.2 Those responsible for or in control of the activity or process are best placed to undertake the risk assessment, but for complex activities or processes there is benefit to adopting a team approach to completing the assessment.

5.3 Where no significant risks are identified (i.e. below a matrix score of 15) existing controls are likely to be sufficient. However, where it is reasonably practicable to implement additional controls that will reduce the risk rating further, these must be implemented. Where the score is above 12, additional controls must be applied to reduce the risk rating.

5.4 Once a risk assessment has been completed it must be authorised by the individual's line manager. In authorising a risk assessment the line manager may wish to take advice from others within the Faculty/Directorate who may have more detailed knowledge of the activity/processes, before they authorise the risk assessment. Advice can also be sought from the H&S Team. Faculties and Directorates may find it is helpful to identify a pool of reviewers from their areas to assist with this.

Modular Risk Assessment

5.5 A project e.g. research/consultancy/MSc project may consist of a series of activities that already have appropriate risk assessments in place. Therefore, a modular approach could be considered which provides details of the activity being assessed and references the existing assessments as appropriate, to reduce duplication. References to the relevant risk assessment should be included in the project specific risk assessment using form OBU-HAS-FORM-07a.00

6. Training and competency

6.1 Risk assessments  shall only be completed by staff or research students who have undergone appropriate training. Only staff trained on this procedure are able to authorise risk assessments.

6.2 A refresher training session should be conducted every three years and includes competence checks by reviewing previously completed assessments.

7. Document management and retention

7.1 All risk assessments are to be stored locally and recorded on OBU’s Risk Register.

7.2 Risk assessments must be reviewed every two years as a minimum or sooner if there is a significant change such as:

  • A change in the work procedure or circumstance or environment
  • The assessment is no longer valid for other reasons, e.g. new information on hazards (including updates to legislation), personnel changes
  • An accident or significant non-injury incident reports associated with the activity.

8. Review

This procedure will be reviewed every three years or before if it is evident that changes are required.

9. References and links

9.1 HSE L21 - Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulation 1999 Approved Code of Practice and Guidance

9.2 Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website

9.3 OBU Risk Assessment Form (OBU-HAS-FORM-07a.00)

9.4 OBU Risk Assessment Guidance (OBU-HAS-BPG-07.00)