Risk assessment, method statements and safe systems of work
What "suitable and sufficient" means
Under MHSWR 1999 a risk assessment must identify the significant hazards, decide who might be harmed and how, evaluate the risk and the adequacy of existing controls, record the significant findings (mandatory at five or more employees) and set a review date. "Suitable and sufficient" does not mean long: it means all significant risks are addressed, it is proportionate to the activity, and trivial risks are ignored. The familiar five steps are hazard, who and how, evaluate and control, record, review.
The hierarchy of control
Regulation 4 and Schedule 1 require risks to be avoided first, then combated at source, adapted to the individual, controlled by technical and engineering means, then by organisational controls, with PPE and RPE last. PPE is always the last resort because it protects only the wearer and fails quietly - it is a supplement, never a substitute.
RAMS and safe systems of work
A risk assessment answers "what could harm whom, how badly and how often"; a method statement answers "how the work will be done, in what sequence, by whom, with what equipment". Together they are the RAMS, and they must be briefed to the workforce and signed for. A safe system of work combines physical controls, sequence, competence, supervision and, where controls can be removed or defeat, a permit to work (isolation and lock-off, confined-space entry, hot work, live electrical work) that is issued, displayed, checked and formally closed.
Traps: answers that put PPE or "training and toolbox talk" first in the hierarchy are wrong; "you can never remove all risk" is not a control; risk assessments are living documents reviewed after change, incident or new information.
Worked example: a 110 V trailing cable across a walkway - reroute or relocate it (eliminate), route overhead or in a duct (engineering), then use a cable ramp with a marked crossing point (organisational). Tape and a warning sign alone is not a control.