Why site-specific RAMS matter: generic documents with the name changed are not enough

The copy-and-paste problem

Most contractors have done it: open last month’s RAMS, change the site name and the date, send it off. It satisfies the request for paperwork. It does not do what a risk assessment is for, which is to make you think about this job on this site before the work starts.

Same job, very different risks

Take a simple re-roof. On a detached house with a long drive, the main hazards are the roof edge and manual handling. Now move the same job to a terrace on a busy street next to a primary school. You now have members of the public below, restricted space for a skip and deliveries, parked cars, children arriving at set times, and perhaps an overhead cable across the front. The task is the same. The risk assessment is not.

The factors that change the controls are rarely in a template:

• Who is nearby: the public, pupils, residents, vulnerable people, other trades.
• Access and logistics: narrow roads, parking restrictions, delivery windows, working hours.
• What is above and below: overhead lines, buried services, basements, voids.
• Existing conditions: asbestos, fragile surfaces, unstable structures, live premises.
• Emergency arrangements: the nearest A&E, how someone would be rescued from height, who raises the alarm.
• The people: who is on the team, their training, any permits that apply.

What the regulator expects

HSE’s guidance on risk assessments and method statements stresses that precautions should be based on the individual risk assessment, and that method statements should deal with the specific work and avoid generalisations that could cause confusion. A RAMS that could describe any site describes none of them well.

What goes wrong with generic RAMS

• Missing hazards. The one thing that makes the site unusual is the thing the template does not mention.
• Controls nobody will apply. If the document describes measures that do not fit the site, workers learn to ignore it.
• A weak position after an incident. If something goes wrong, the question will be whether the risks of that job on that site were properly considered. A document with another client’s address crossed out will not help.
• Lost work. Many principal contractors can spot a recycled RAMS quickly. It tells them how you will behave on their site.

Making site-specific RAMS practical

The fear is that doing it properly takes all evening. It does not have to. The method is to keep the knowledge reusable and the facts about the site new each time.

1. Visit the site, or review the survey, photos and client information, before you write anything.
2. Record the site facts: address, access, neighbours, area type, services, hazards already known.
3. Build the document from the work you will actually do, in the order you will do it.
4. Let a competent person challenge it: what have we missed that only this site has?
5. Brief the team using the site-specific points, not just the general ones.

How AutoRAMS handles this

AutoRAMS is built on the idea that the site changes the document. You choose the jobs for the visit, then add the site: address, dates, area type, access, your team and the nearest A&E. The risk assessment is generated for those jobs on that site, so a school, a live road or a rail site each changes the controls. You still need your competent person to read it and add what only someone on site would know. The software gives you a strong, thorough starting point, not a replacement for judgement.