NEBOSH IG2 Risk Assessment

The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) Dominus Way, Meridian Business Park, Leicester LE19 1QW

Tel: +44 (0) 116 263 4700 Fax: +44 (0) 116 282 4000 Email: [email protected] www.nebosh.org.uk

Version: 4 Specification date: October 2018 Publication date: May 2021

Registered Charity Number: 1010444

© NEBOSH. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, mechanical, photocopied or otherwise, without the express permission in writing from NEBOSH.

Guidance and information for learners and Learning Partners

International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety

Unit IG2: Risk assessment

Course OverviewContents

Part 1 Guidance for learners

Learning outcome 4

Assessment criteria 4

Introduction 4

Stages of assessment 5

Location 11

Assessment time and tutor guidance 11

Assessment forms and submitting Unit IG2 for marking 12

Results 14

Resubmission if you have been referred in the assessment 14

Part 2 Guidance for Learning Partners

Setting up the assessment 16

Location 16

Guidance on assessment completion 16

A Learning Partner’s staff, family or friends taking the Unit IG2 assessment 16

Assessment submission 17

Part 1: Guidance for learners

NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 4

Description of the

organisation and methodology

used

Prioritise 3 actions with justification

Review, communicate

and check

Risk assessment

Part 1 Guidance for learners

Learning outcome

Do a general risk assessment in their workplace, profiling and prioritising risks, inspecting the workplace, recognising a range of common hazards, evaluating risks and (taking account of current controls), recommending further control measures and planning actions.

Assessment criteria

Produce a risk assessment of a workplace which considers a wide range of identified hazards (drawn from elements 5-11 of the IG syllabus) and meets best practice standards ‘suitable and sufficient’.

Introduction

The aim of this assessment is for you to practically apply the knowledge and understanding that you have gained from your studies. To do this, you will need to complete a risk assessment of your workplace. Before you start the assessment, you must have completed your studies of the whole of the IG syllabus (elements 1 to 11).

The stages of the assessment are as follows:

The rest of this guidance tells you what you need to do to complete the assessment. The guidance also contains some helpful hints and tips (including information on how to complete the various forms).

An assessment pack has been produced to provide you with everything that you will need to complete the assessment. This can be downloaded from the NEBOSH website (www.nebosh.org.uk).

When completing your risk assessment it can be difficult to know how much detail is enough.

So here are some useful tips. Your risk assessment should not be about creating huge amounts of paperwork, but should instead be about identifying sensible and proportionate measures to control the risks in your workplace. We want your risk assessment to be realistic and the level of detail to be proportionate to the level of risk in your organisation. To help you with this exercise we have based this risk assessment format on the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) approach to risk assessment. The HSE is the British health and safety regulator. You can refer to the risk assessment guidance, examples and frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the HSE website http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/controlling-risks. htm and the completed example provided by NEBOSH in the assessment pack. We have also included in the forms approximate word counts for each section. These word counts should be used as a guide only and should not be seen as an absolute minimum or maximum.

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Stages of assessment

You must use the headed tables in Part 1 of the assessment pack to complete the description of the organisation and the risk assessment methodology used.

Start by giving a clear and concise description of your chosen organisation (normally the organisation you work for, but it doesn’t have to be). You can hide the name and location of your organisation if you like (for confidentiality) by using false details, but everything else needs to be factual. You also need to think about the scope of the risk assessment. For example, are you going to look at the whole organisation or just a specific department/division etc? If you work for a large organisation, we recommend that you concentrate on a part of the organisation or a specific activity or process. If you are unsure, ask your tutor for advice.

Your assessment is going to be marked by an examiner appointed by NEBOSH. The examiner will need a clear description of your organisation to allow them to judge whether your risk assessment is suitable and sufficient. If you provide an unclear or incomplete description, this could affect the marking of the risk assessment.

You should include the following information:

1. the name of the organisation;

2. site location (you don’t need to give the full address, just the general location eg, New Delhi, India);

3. how many workers are employed by the organisation;

4. a general description* of the organisation, which must include information on products manufactured and/or services provided, the types of activities undertaken and shift patterns worked;

5. a description of the area to be included in the risk assessment; and

6. any other relevant information eg, who has the day-to-day responsibility for health and safety in your organisation. If you feel there is nothing relevant here, you do not need to include this in the description.

* The description of the organisation should be detailed enough to give the examiner (who may not be familiar with your industry) a clear image of your organisation. For example, ‘garage- related activities’ is far too brief. Something like this would be better (extract from the worked example in the assessment pack):

Description of the

organisation and methodology

used

Prioritise 3 actions with justification

Review, communicate

and check

Risk assessment

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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…

IGG Ltd is a medium-sized garage with offices, vehicle repair shop and paint spray booth. The business does a lot of body repairs on vehicles involved in accidents for insurance companies. Servicing is also carried out for members of the public. Typical activities undertaken include moving spare parts from the stores to the workshop area, engine repairs, activities relating to servicing/MOTs, body repair, draining fuel/oil from vehicles, spray booth activities (including the use of paints that are solvent based). The garage operates from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and is closed at the weekends. Workers are only required to work 7 hours per day so there are staggered start and finish times in place.

…

You will then need to outline how you carried out the risk assessment (methodology used). You will need to include:

• the sources of information that you consulted;

• who you spoke to; and

• how you identified: - the hazards; - what is already being done; and - any additional controls/actions that may be required.

You may also include anything else that is relevant to the completion of the risk assessment.

Please note that this section can be completed after you have completed your risk assessment.

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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You must use the table in Part 2 of the assessment pack to complete the risk assessment.

You will now need to complete a risk assessment of your organisation. You must find and record at least 10 different hazards that are taken from at least 5 different hazard categories. For the avoidance of doubt, hazard categories for this assessment are the topic headings for Elements 5 – 11 of the IG syllabus as shown in Table 1:

Description of the

organisation and methodology

used

Prioritise 3 actions with justification

Review, communicate

and check

Risk assessment

Element Hazard categories

5 Noise; vibration; radiation; mental ill-health; violence at work; substance abuse at work

6 Work related upper-limb disorders (ergonomics, workstation design etc); manual handling; load handling equipment

7 Hazardous substances (chemical or biological)

8 Health, welfare and work environment; working at height; confined spaces; lone working; slips and trips; movement of people and vehicles in the workplace; work-related driving

9 Work equipment and machinery

10 Fire

11 Electricity

Table 1

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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Part 1 Guidance for learners

Your risk assessment must include details on:

• the hazard and the hazard category (column 1)*;

• who may be harmed and how (column 2);

• what you are already doing to control the hazard (column 3)**;

• what further controls or actions might be needed (column 4)** – remember you must take account of the hierarchy of control and the prevention and control measures in ILO-OSH 2001, Section 3.10.1 in deciding on further controls;

• what the timescales are for completion of each action (column 5); and

• the role of the person responsible for completing each action (column 6).

Important note: please ensure that ALL columns are completed with realistic information. If you have nothing to include, for example under additional controls/actions, please put N/A or similar, do not leave the column blank. The IG2 example on the NEBOSH website shows examples of where N/A (or similar) must be used.

*Column numbers – please see Table 2.

**When you complete your risk assessment you will see that columns 3 and 4 work together. If you are already doing enough to control the risk, there will be a lot of controls listed in column 3 but very few (if any) in column 4 (you might even just note that no further action is necessary). On the other-hand, if you have very few controls in place, column 3 will contain very little and column 4 will contain a lot more. Both of these scenarios are fine because they are realistic.

You must not include photographs, drawings etc in your risk assessment.

So that you can get an idea of the level of detail required and the way that columns 3 and 4 work together, please see the example in Table 2 (this has been extracted from the full example that is included in the assessment pack).

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Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6

Hazard category and hazard

Who might be harmed and how?

What are you already doing?

What further controls/actions are required?

Timescales for further actions to be completed (within...)

Responsible person’s job role

Working at height

People and/or items falling into the inspection pit whilst work is being carried out in this area.

Anyone working in or around the inspection pit.

Likely injuries include brusing, sprains/ strains, fractures or more serious injuries eg, head, internal injuries, worst case death. These types of injuries are likely to be life changing and involve the worker being in constant considerable pain (eg, the worker may no longer be able to work after such a fall/ need to rely on family/ friends for constant care).

When the inspection pit is in use, the area is restricted (by use of barriers) for those working near the area.

Fixed stairs to allow safe access and ingress to the inpection pit.

Inspection pit is covered when not in use.

Lone working is not allowed in the inspection pits (there are always at least two people working in the area).

The workshop manager regularly monitors the use of access equipment and work in the inspection pit.

Purchase a mobile ‘bridge’ to allow mechanics to be able to safely access both sides of the inspection pit when working at ground level.

Add the bridge into the maintenance schedule - needs to be inspected at least every six months.

Arrange for all workers to be trained in how to use the bridge safely.

2 months

2 months

2 months (following the purchase of the bridge)

Workshop and Stores Managers for all actions

Table 2

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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You must use the table in Part 3 of the assessment pack to prioritise your actions and justify your selection.

Once you have completed the risk assessment, which includes allocating actions, you must pick what you consider to be the 3 highest priority/most urgent actions needing attention. These actions can be associated with the same or different hazards/hazard categories; the important thing is that they need to be your highest priorities for action.

You must give a justification for why you think these are the highest priority/most urgent actions. Your justification must include:

• Moral, general legal and financial arguments for all actions. The legal arguments must cover requirements that would apply to all workplace situations such as those under the ILO’s Occupational Safety and Health Convention (C155).

• Specific legal arguments, consideration of likelihood and severity and the action’s effectiveness in controlling the risk for EACH action. Your legal arguments must be based on the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Conventions,

Recommendations and Codes of Practice. You may also include country-specific legislation but this will not be marked.

Please note that you are not expected to include detailed descriptions of the Articles in the conventions. You just need to say what the duties are. For example, you could say that your employer has a duty to ensure that equipment under their control is safe to use.

• Consideration of the likelihood AND severity (taking account of current control measures) of injury, ill-health or harm occurring. This must include consideration of the types of injury, ill-health or harm likely to be seen, the number of workers at risk, how often the activity is carried out and how widespread the risk is, eg, does the same threat exist in other parts/ branches/divisions/sites of the organisation?

• Detail on how effective each of your chosen actions is likely to be in controlling the risk. Here you must describe:

> the intended impact of each action;

> justification for the timescale that you indicate in your risk assessment for the action; and

> whether you think the action will fully control the risk.

Description of the

organisation and methodology

used

Prioritise 3 actions with justification

Review, communicate

and check

Risk assessment

Part 1 Guidance for learners

NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 11

You must use the tables in Part 4 of the assessment pack to complete the review, communicate and check exercise.

The final part of the assessment is to:

1. set a realistic review date for the risk assessment and say when you would review the risk assessment and why;

2. indicate how the findings of the risk assessment are to be communicated (verbal or written and the methods to be used, eg, email, noticeboards) and who needs to know the findings; and

3. indicate how you will follow up on the risk assessment to check that the actions have been carried out.

Location

The assessment must be carried out in your own workplace. This means that your risk assessment will be realistic and provide added value for you and your organisation. Your workplace should be large enough to provide a sufficient range of hazard categories/hazards.

If you do not have access to a workplace please speak to your Learning Partner. Your Learning Partner will help you to make arrangements for the assessment to be carried out at other suitable premises.

Before carrying out the assessment, you must speak to the management at the premises to ensure that you can carry out the inspection without endangering your own health and safety (so that advice can be given on any restricted areas, whether PPE must be worn, etc).

Assessment time and tutor guidance

The time needed to complete the assessment is not restricted. We do, however, recommend that you take around 3 hours to complete all four parts of the assessment. We feel that the 3 hours will allow you to show your understanding of the assessment requirements and complete a good quality risk assessment. Please note that the 3 hours is for guidance; you may choose to take more or less time to complete your assessment.

We advise that you discuss your approach with your tutor after reading this guidance. They can give you advice on whether you are ‘heading in the right direction’ – for example, they may comment on whether you have chosen a suitable workplace or situation that will give enough scope to be able to tackle this assessment properly. Do not submit drafts of your work to your tutor as they are not allowed to pre-mark or comment on specific details.

Description of the

organisation and methodology

used

Prioritise 3 actions with justification

Review, communicate

and check

Risk assessment

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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Assessment forms and submitting Unit IG2 for marking

Your assessment can either be hand written or completed electronically. The assessment pack contains two sets of forms; one for a hand written assessment and the other for an electronic assessment.

Electronic forms When you start your assessments you must double-click the page footer and insert your learner number and name on the first sheet. The page numbering will change automatically as you increase the number of pages that you use. Please ensure that you use a font and font size that is easy to read eg, Arial size 10 to 12.

Hand written forms You must ensure that your learner number and name are written on the top of every form. Additionally, you must all ensure that you include the page numbers at the top of every sheet where indicated eg, page 2 of 8.

For handwritten submissions, we recognise that sometimes you might not have enough room for everything that you want to add. So, if you are running out of room, simply indicate that there will be a continuation of the content by writing ‘continued’ where the content is to be broken; the remaining content can then be completed on the continuation sheet - write ‘continued’ before the content. You need to make it clear what is being continued as this will help the examiner when they are marking your assessment. An example follows.

We would recommend that you submit electronically, but understand that there will be occasions when this is not possible. The headings in both sets of forms are the same, so feel free to choose the format that is best for you.

Both sets of forms have been designed to take you through all of the assessment sections. Completing all sections of the forms and referring to this document for additional guidance should help to ensure that you receive a ‘Pass’ for your assessment. It is also recommended that you refer to the ‘worked example’ so that you can see what level of detail is required for each section. The example can be downloaded from the resources section on the qualification page of the NEBOSH website.

Part 1 Guidance for learners

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Part 1 Guidance for learners

Example continuation sheets

Name of organisation* International General Garage Ltd (known as IGG Ltd)

Site location* Leicestershire

Number of workers 24 workers

General description of the organisation

IGG Ltd is a medium sized garage with offices, vehicle repair shop and paint spray booth. The business does a lot of repairs and maintenance on commercial vehicles and body repairs on vehicles (mainly cars and vans) that have been involved in accidents for insurance companies. Servicing and MOTs are also carried out for members of the public. Typical activities undertaken include moving spare parts from the stores to the workshop, engine repairs, activities relating to servicing/MOTs, body repair, draining fuel/oil, spray booth activities (including the use of paints that are solvent based).

Continued …

Description of the area to be included in the risk assessment

The garage and spray booth activities; the office area has a separate risk assessment.

Any other relevant information

The Finance Director (who reports directly to the Managing Director) has direct responsibility for health and safety.

Name of organisation*

Site location*

Number of workers

General description of the organisation

Continuation …

The garage operates from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and is closed at the weekends. Workers are only required to work 7

hours per day so there are staggered start and finish times in place.

Description of the area to be included in the risk assessment

Any other relevant information

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Assessment submission Your assessment (Parts 1 - 4) must be entirely your own work. By submitting your assessment for marking, you are declaring that it is your own work. Falsely claiming that your assessment is your own work is malpractice and NEBOSH may impose severe penalties, as set out in the NEBOSH Malpractice Policy.

Your assessment must be submitted to your Learning Partner electronically as a PDF (portable document format) document. If you do not know how to, or are unable to, produce a pdf document, please ask your Learning Partner for advice.

Your Learning Partner will tell you the date that they need to receive your assessment. Once received, your assessment will be upload to NEBOSH for marking. If you fail to submit your assessment to your Learning Partner by the date requested, you will be marked as ‘absent’.

Results

We aim to issue results within 50 working days of the date of the assessment.

Resubmission if you have been referred in the assessment

You can only achieve a ‘Pass’ or ‘Refer’ for the assessment. If you need to resubmit you will need to register for the assessment again and pay the appropriate fee. You are not limited

on the number of times that you can resubmit the practical for marking. However, you must remember that both of the units (IG1 and IG2) must be passed within a five year period.

Part 1 Guidance for learners

Part 2: Guidance for Learning Partners

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This section of the guidance either expands on the detail in Part 1 or gives specific information for Learning Partners that is not relevant to learners.

Setting up the assessment

You can set up the practical assessment for ‘On Demand’ assessments on any date that you choose; it is not dependent on the Unit IG1assessment date. For Standard Date assessments, the submission (upload date) will be the same as the written examination (IG1). Please see ‘Assessment submission’ for further details.

Location

The assessment should normally be carried out in your learner’s own workplace. If your learner does not have access to a workplace, you must help the learner make arrangements to carry out the practical assessment at suitable premises. If you are running the practical in this way, you should contact the Customer Experience team at NEBOSH for advice and approval.

You should ensure that before the learner carries out the assessment, they speak to the management at the premises. This is to ensure that the learner can carry out the inspection without endangering their own health and safety (so that advice can be given on any restricted areas, whether PPE must be worn etc).

Guidance on assessment completion

You may give your learners guidance on whether they are ‘heading in the right direction’ – for example, you may comment on whether they have chosen a suitable workplace or situation that will give sufficient scope to achieve the necessary breadth and depth of content required. You must not carry out a pre-mark prior to submission to NEBOSH.

A Learning Partner’s staff, family or friends taking the Unit IG2 assessment

You must declare in writing to NEBOSH any staff member, spouse, family or other close personal relationship with any learner taking the IG2 assessment. You must refer to the instructions given in the document ‘Instructions for Conducting Examinations’ for further information.

Part 2 Guidance for Learning Partners

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Assessment submission

You must satisfy yourself that the assessments that your learners submit are their own work. By submitting their assessments for marking they are declaring that it is entirely their own work. Falsely claiming that it is their own work is malpractice and NEBOSH may impose severe penalties (see the NEBOSH Malpractice Policy for further information).

You must tell your learners the date that you will require their completed assessment by. You must allow sufficient time for the upload and the following rules apply:

Assessment type Date from which

assessments can be uploaded to NEBOSH

Latest date for assessments to be uploaded to NEBOSH

On demand The day after the

registration closing date

The date specified on the examination request form

Standard date 10 working days following the

written assessment IG1

Assessments must be uploaded in PDF format via the Course Provider Interface (CPI). Before uploading the assessments, please make sure that the pages are in order eg, run from pages 1 to 5 and are rotated so that they can be immediately read eg, the pages are the right way up. You will need to click on the ‘Practical Upload’ tab; this will allow you to either upload the assessments or, if the learner fails to submit their completed assessment to you on time, mark the learner as ‘absent’.

Part 2 Guidance for Learning Partners