Risk Assessment and its Place in a Church

Previously, we explored how proper management of health and safety at church enables us to practically love one another by taking reasonable steps to prevent people from coming to harm.

We have also expanded on what the law says about how safe we have to be in order to fulfil our legal duties.

Risk assessment is an essential tool that enables us to achieve these goals and put these principles into practice.

A risk assessment is a structured and systematic examination of activities and/or environments to identify anything that could cause harm or illness. The goal is to evaluate potential risks and, where appropriate, determine effective measures to mitigate them, ensuring the safety and well-being of everyone involved.

‘Suitable and sufficient risk assessment’ is a general legal duty on employers under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and must be documented if there are five or more employees. However, it is also a practical tool for keeping people safe and improving efficiency for organisations of any size, including non-employers.

It should also be noted that even where a specific obligation to conduct risk assessment does not apply, failure to systematically consider safety risks may be seen as evidence of a failure to fulfil broader legal duties to ensure safety ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. Meeting our safety duties is more about exercising sensible judgement than about ‘ticking boxes’.

Before starting a risk assessment, it is important to understand and define the scope: what is being assessed; where it is taking place; and how the activity is being conducted. Without a clear scope, risk assessments can become unwieldy, generic, or difficult to implement. For example:

• An overly narrow scope considering a very specific activity will require many other risk assessments to be conducted to cover the full range of activities.
• An overly broad risk assessment seeking to encompass all activities is likely to become complex and difficult to apply.

Risk assessment documents may also be combined with more general directions for how an activity is to be carried out (in certain industries, such as construction, these would be called Risk Assessment Method Statements or RAMS). In this way, they serve as a tool not only to ensure safety but to review and explore the most efficient or practical way of completing a task.

• Hazard - anything with the potential to cause harm (e.g., a patch of ice on which someone may slip).
• Accident – an interaction with a hazard leading to a harmful outcome (e.g. someone slipping on ice). This may also be referred to as a hazardous event.
• Likelihood – the probability of an event occurring under certain circumstances (e.g. how likely someone is to slip on a walkway in icy conditions).
• Frequency – how often an event occurs (e.g. slips on ice at a particular church might typically occur once or twice per year).
• Consequence – how bad the outcome of an accident is (e.g. cuts and scrapes, broken limbs). This term is often used interchangeably with severity.
• Risk – a measure of how exposed we are to the potential for harm, based on both frequency and consequence (this can be thought of as ‘how worried we should be about the hazard’).

1. Identify the hazards

This step involves spotting anything with the potential to cause harm. Hazards can come in various forms, including:

• Hazards causing physical injury, e.g. sharp tools, hot surfaces, slippery floors, working at height.
• Hazards causing illness, e.g. toxic cleaning chemicals, loud noises, infectious diseases, asbestos.
• Hazards affecting wellbeing, e.g. stressful working conditions, aggression, verbal abuse.
• Hazards that increase vulnerability to other risk factors, e.g. lone working.

As we do this, we need to be careful to distinguish between hazards, hazardous events (incidents, accidents, or “near misses”), and risks. For example, slips, trips and falls are types of hazardous events, while the associated hazards may be wet or uneven floors, ice, or trip hazards.

2. Identify who might be harmed and how

Once hazards are identified, we need to consider who might be affected.

This may be a simple step where only those directly involved in the task/activity are affected, but often others in the immediate vicinity or wider area may be affected (e.g. when considering noise levels at an outdoor event with amplified music).

Specific consideration may be needed for vulnerable groups, such as children, new or expectant mothers, or individuals with a mobility or sensory impairment.

3. Evaluate the risks

This step involves assessing the frequency and consequence of each hazard to evaluate its overall risk. A risk matrix can be a useful tool for this (see the example matrix in the risk assessment template and below).

Using a matrix with clearly defined categories enables us to handle risk in a way that is consistent between hazards and reflects both frequency and consequence. This helps present a more complete picture than a single numerical score or generic labels such as high/medium/low, which can be difficult to interpret consistently.

Such simplification can also remove an important practical distinction between low frequency/high severity and high frequency/low severity risks (which might both be classed as ‘medium’ but often need to be managed differently).

Risk evaluation enables us to prioritise based on frequency and consequence and enables us to judge which risks are low enough to be deemed acceptable and which need to be reduced further to ensure safety 'So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable'.

If we consider our earlier example of slips, trips, and falls, a trip hazard in a main thoroughfare is more likely to cause someone to trip over than the same trip hazard in a service corridor that is rarely used. In both cases, the outcome likely remains the same.

4. Determine and implement controls

Controls aim to reduce risks to an acceptable level and will need to be added for any risks which are deemed not to be acceptable.

Returning to a slips, trips, and falls example (assuming the hazard is a vacuum cleaner cable), we might consider the following controls: we could eliminate the hazard by using a battery powered device; we could contain the cable in a cable tray to isolate it; or we could manage and administer the hazard through user instruction and warning signage. We can also reduce the hazard by using the vacuum cleaner when there are few people in the building to be exposed to it.

The following Hierarchy of Controls provides a structured approach, listed from most to least effective:

• Eliminate: Remove the hazard entirely (e.g. removing the need for harmful chemicals by using cleaning methods that do not require them).
• Substitute: Replace a hazardous element with something less harmful (e.g. using water-based paints instead of solvent-based ones).
• Isolate: Isolate the hazard from those it may affect (e.g. storing cleaning chemicals in a locked cupboard).
• Transfer: Outsource the task/activity to a competent third party (e.g. hiring a professional window cleaner to clean upper storey windows).
• Administer: Implement policies, procedures, or training to manage risks (e.g. providing specific training for hazardous tasks).
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Provide protective gear such as gloves, helmets, or goggles. This should be treated as a last line of defence in case other controls fail, rather than the main control measure if others are available.

Controls should be documented so that anyone carrying out a task or activity knows what is required and why.

5. Review and update

Risk assessments are not static documents.

Regular review ensures they remain relevant and effective. This should be done at an appropriate frequency, which should reflect the risk: a high-risk activity may require annual review but other risk assessments can be reviewed every few years.

Review should also be prompted if there are changes to the activity in question (e.g. a change of location or use of new equipment). While there is no statutory review period for risk assessments, it can be helpful to decide this in advance and record a due date in the document.

When setting due dates, consider whether you want to be reviewing all your risk assessments at the same time, or staggered.

Risk assessments are essential for creating a safe, efficient, and legally compliant environment for ministry activities. Beyond meeting regulations, they provide insights into better ways of working and help foster a culture of safety and well-being.

Health and safety require constant vigilance, collaboration, and a proactive mindset. Through structured risk assessments, we can create safer environments while achieving our goals effectively.

By systematically identifying hazards, assessing risks, and implementing controls, organisations can minimise accidents, illnesses, and disruptions, ensuring everyone goes home safe and sound.