Risk Assessment

When organising any activity of event you have a duty of care to your participants to make your activities as safe as possible and prevent accidents from happening. If something does happen, you’ll need to produce your Risk Assessment to show what you did to prevent it.

You will need to do a Risk Assessment when you organise an event outside your usual activity

 An example of this may be:

You want to sell tickets to your event

You’re going on a trip or residential (UK or abroad)

Your event will involve members of the public

Your event is aimed at over 150 people

Your event might involve children (even if it’s just a possibility)

You’re running a competition

Your event is a performance

Your event has an enhanced risk

You have been asked to complete one by York SU

If you’re not sure whether your event requires a Risk Assessment, contact Geoff at g.ward@yorksu.org. 

The Risk Assessment is designed to identify potential hazards and who might be harmed by them and evaluate the risks and controls needed to help prevent harm. These findings are recorded, and must be reviewed as necessary. 

Risk Rating

To start, you’ll need to assess the potential risks. To do this, you calculate what’s called the risk rating using the risk rating scale. You’ll take each hazard and assign it a number of 1 to 5 for how severe the consequence will be if it occurs, and then a second score of A to E for how likely is is to occur. The risk rating is then represented as the number then the letter (eg 1B).

For example

If you were assessing the dangers posed by a club event, you might have a hazard of ‘loud music’. This could potentially lead to serious hearing loss if not properly controlled, so it receives consequence score of 3. It is also very likely to happen if measures are not in place, so it receives a likelihood rating of E. This gives you an overall score of 3E which is a High risk rating.

Precautions

Once you have determined your risk rating, you will then detail the precautions you will take to reduce this risk.

For example 

At your club event, you would take the precaution of monitoring sound levels to ensure they are within HSE guidelines. You might also provide earplugs to events staff who will experience the longest exposure. 

Residual Risk

The residual risk is a re-calculation of the risk rating now that these precautions are in place. 

For example

Now that your sound levels are monitored, your consequence rating would remain the same at 3, as there is still a possibility of human error, however your likelihood score would now drop to A because you have suitable precautions in place. Your overall risk rating is then reduced to Low.

Overall Risk

The overall risk is a rating of High, Medium, or Low, and is determined by using the highest rated residual risk. 

When it’s complete, you’ll need to share it with Geoff at g.ward@yorksu.org.