Introduction to Fire Safety Management

➤ Safety representatives
➤ Designers
➤ Process engineers.
Once the team has been assembled a list of all activities
within the chosen area, or list of areas, would need to be
compiled as part of the initial inventory preparation. (This
key issue is discussed in Chapter 14.)
It will normally always be necessary to support the
assessor and/or assessment team with appropriate
training to fulfi l their role. The exact nature and duration
of such training will be dependent upon their role,
existing levels of knowledge and the work activities being
assessed.
Any training designed to support a risk assessment
process is likely to include:
➤ Organisational policy on risk assessment
➤ Legal requirements for risk assessment and the
interpretation of legal standards
➤ How to identify hazards using sources of information
(HM Government guides, HSC ACoPs, safety event
reports and inspection reports)
➤ Evaluating risks using qualitative and quantitative
mechanisms
➤ The identifi cation and selection of appropriate control
measures (taking into account those that are
reasonably practicable)
➤ Recording the assessment (forms, reports and
recording skills)
➤ Communication and dissemination of the outcomes
of the assessment.
While the above list is not exhaustive and any training
programme will not make a person or persons ‘competent’,
a basic programme will provide underpinning knowledge
from which an assessor can become competent.
5.5 The risk assessment process
Because of the fundamental role risk assessments play
as a starting point for developing safety management
systems, they must be conducted systematically. A systematic
approach will help satisfy the law and ensure
that nothing which could present a risk is inadvertently
omitted. What appears to many to be the daunting task
of conducting all the necessary risk assessments for any
given work undertaking can be relatively easily achieved
by a straightforward progression through a number of
logical steps.
There are a number of different methodologies that
are currently used throughout industry and commerce
to achieve a systematic approach to risk assessment. In
Principles of risk assessment
its guidance Five Steps to Risk Assessment the HSE has
suggested the following stepped approach to assessing
risks to health and safety in the workplace:
1. Identify the hazards
2. Decide who might be harmed and how
3. Evaluate the risks (in terms of likelihood and severity)
and decide whether the existing precautions are
adequate or whether more should be done
4. Record the signifi cant fi ndings
5. Review the assessment and revise if necessary.
Figure 5.5 HSE’s Five Steps to Risk Assessment guide
In its own fi re safety guidance documents HM Government
has adopted a very similar approach in its guidance
on how an assessment of fi re risks can be achieved
(Chapter 14).
The above steps identify the basic process of risk
assessment and are discussed in more detail later in this
chapter.
In order for organisations to conduct suitable and
suffi cient risk assessment and ensure that all risks
arising from work activities are identifi ed, evaluated and
effectively controlled it is necessary to adopt a systematic
approach to conducting risk assessments. It is likely
that any such approach which require organisations to
perform the following stages:
➤ Preparing an activity inventory that clearly identifi
es the types of workplace/s, any activities and
pro cesses that are to be assessed
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