A risk assessment is a careful examination of what in your work could cause harm, so you can decide whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more. It is not a form and it is not a score: it is the thinking, written down where somebody else can read it. The law asks for it to be suitable and sufficient, which in practice means specific to the work, proportionate to the risk, and current with how the job is actually done.
The five steps, in order
Identify the hazards. Decide who might be harmed and how. Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions. Record the significant findings. Review and update. The order matters because each step feeds the next, and the most common failure is starting at step four with a template and working backwards.
Hazards are found by looking, not by remembering
Walk the job. Access and egress, the surfaces, the services, the height, dust and noise, the public, the weather, and whatever other trades have left behind. An assessment written at a desk lists what is generally true of the trade; a reviewer can tell the difference in one paragraph, and so can an investigator.
Controls in order, and a review trigger
Eliminate the hazard, substitute something safer, engineer it out, organise the work around it, and only then rely on protective equipment, which is the control most easily left in the van. Then say when the assessment will be looked at again: a change of sequence, crew, season or site condition is a trigger, and so is any incident.
Questions people ask about what is a risk assessment
Does every job need a written risk assessment?
The duty to assess applies to every employer; the duty to record the significant findings applies from five employees, and in practice any site you attend as a contractor will ask for the record whatever your size. Writing it is also the only way to brief it.
How long should one be?
As long as the significant hazards require, which for most small jobs is one side. Length is not evidence of quality; a page that names the three things that could actually hurt somebody beats fifteen generic ones.
Who is competent to write it?
Somebody who understands the work, the hazards and the controls, which on a small job is usually the person running it. For specialised hazards such as asbestos, confined spaces or lifting operations, competence means formal training rather than familiarity.