Risk assessment audit 

Many businesses get caught out because they complete risk assessments but fail to keep them up to date. To avoid following suit, you should complete annual audits to ensure that your paperwork reflects what’s happening on the shop floor.

What’s covered?

After an accident or during an enforcement inspection is not a good time to realise that your risk assessments bear little resemblance to what’s really happening in the workplace. But this often happens because the risk assessment process is completed, the documents are signed off, filed and then not referred to again.

If you fall into this trap, an inspector could take enforcement action, as your risk assessments are unlikely to meet the legal standard of being “suitable and sufficient”. To make sure that your documents are kept up-to-date, we suggest that you use our new Risk Assessment Audit document.

When to do it?

The audit should be conducted either annually, or whenever significant changes have taken place. The process should be undertaken by a senior manager and completed with either the supervisor, or senior staff involved with directly managing the process.

Record keeping. Once completed, re-date and re-issue the risk assessment to your staff. Have them sign a record sheet to state they’ve been issued with it and keep the record on their personnel file. Keep the original copy in an archive file for a period of no less than three years.