Updated Risk Assessment

Not in my experience :wink:

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You would, yeah (and probably most). But I think it’s more about recording the specific events on that activity for further audit and giving a reference for next time as to why it’s in your new one/why you need to add it in there.

If someone gets caught out 3 years in a row by the tide and has never recorded what happened or what actions they took, there’s a serious problem that needs to be addressed but there’s no mechanism in our remote working structure to flag these things if it’s not recorded on the ground. If it all goes horribly wrong in that third year and the question ā€œdid this happen beforeā€ comes up, followed by ā€œwhy wasn’t it recordedā€, followed by ā€œwhy didn’t you change your RA and other planning to prevent itā€ and the answers are ā€œyesā€, ā€œI forgot/didn’t botherā€, ā€œIt was a year later and I forgot to include itā€ā€¦

Someone is in a lot of trouble.

We’re working to the lowest denominator here and we all know that one corner-cutting chump we don’t trust. We live in a bureaucracy that will shift the blame as low as possible. If RAFAC can turn around and say ā€œwe told them to do it, we trained them to do it, and we even gave them a specific box to remind them and give them somewhere convenient to do itā€, well there’s your downhill slope to aim your blame.

Would it be less controversial if the dynamic section was a separate document to be uploaded to SMS before completing the event as part of the post activity report?

Obviously something cropping up which prompts a dynamic change would probably give rise to a proper reassessment. You would likely think ā€œActually, yeah… That’s something I hadn’t considered and it could be an issue next time too.ā€
But really, I would think that the requirement to document a dynamic RA update would be mainly evidentiary.
i.e. Circumstances change… Despite your best efforts something happens… You would need to be able to demonstrate that you recognised the departure from the RA and dynamically reassessed the situation.
I’m not convinced that writing it down there and then (especially in the examples given by others) would legally be necessary to demonstrate that you had in fact tried to mitigate the increased risk.

(And when I say ā€œI’m not convincedā€ I am being polite :wink: )

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Isn’t that the whole point of the end of activity report on Bader?

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Thing is, there’s no mechanism regardless of that box being there. It’s not mandatory to upload anything to complete an SMS event, nor is there a mechanism for the governance chain to review PXRs or any post-event changes to uploaded documents. So until that is in place, it still seems worthless - but I do appreciate your point about the blame aspect.

Not minimal effort…
Over 40 RAs to ā€œamendā€ on my Sqn.
This is 2 days work.

Can we claim VA for admin…

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For the sake of your own memory more than anything, I’d say. But also as back up should you get questioned on it - more credible if you’d already recorded it.

Which is pretty vague in its current format. I wonder how many are essentially ā€œactivity went ahead, sun was shining, no one diedā€ or whatever more creative solution @Baldrick has imagined on a particular day.

Yeah, I never said it was a perfect solution.

On the blame thing, to flip it slightly, I’m all for CFAV taking any step to cover their own backsides and HQAC providing a way to enable this is also kind of positive. The competent among us will already do something that serves the purpose, but this is just another available tool/prompt.

On the back of all of that, I’m wondering if the Post Activity Report should be in Wizard format with a series of questions prompting the relevant information…

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The concept of an ā€œactivity commanderā€ still confuses me. Who is that on Sqn? It can’t just be one person as they might not be running an activity on the night and therefore can’t supervise & stop the activity. Do all the staff & staff cadets need to review the RA and sign it?

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I’ve done this before, yes. Not sure RE the new format though.

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I wouldn’t say they need to sign it, but certainly everyone actually taking part in the activity needs to be able to see it and have it briefed to them if required. A pre activity briefing based on your risk assessment is a pretty good idea, as long as you don’t just read it out word for word.

Most of mine for a start…

True, though one would of course have to balance that with the requirement to maintain control in the moment; and with the practicalities of current conditions.

I’d far rather make the call mentally, and then make some contemporaneous notes in a pocket notebook a little bit later on, when the situation allows, than to faff about with a collection of A4 pages of RAFAC RA form on the top of a mountain, or in a following sea.

I think probably that verbally briefing one’s new plan to another CFAV - as one would likely need to do anyway - would also assist as evidence that one had reacted to the changing situation.

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Whoever is completing the RA needs to be ā€˜competent’ to do so - i.e. have the knowledge, skills and experience to appropriately identify the hazards and put in place sensible controls.

Certainly in the AT / shooting world (or indeed any other qualification driven activity) then the activity commander would be the person with the ticket.

Just read through the comments and expected a total shambles of a form… But it looks ok to me.

I agree moving all current RA’s over to the new form will be a massive pain… but I thought visually it was ok, the guidance notes aren’t terrible. It will be annoying moving current forms to this new one but at least we can do this as we go rather than having to do it all in one hit.

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except having just re done all mine for re opening as they were out of date I will have to do them all at once for next year on the new form

Gives me 12 months to get to grips with it…

The obvious thing for everyone to do is quickly redo all their old RAs with new dates, buy a full 12 months…

Then worry about the new form.

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Some of these GRAs are truly terrible.

Activity: ā€œOpening Up/Locking Up Squadronā€
Hazard Identified: ā€œSome Staff may not feel comfortable or safe carrying out this task aloneā€

It’s almost as though it were written by someone who doesn’t understand what a ā€œhazardā€ is… :thinking:
Perhaps if they included some Guidance on the form itself which explained what the word means… Oh…

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A control measure for Fire:

Never waste the opportunity of a free light of your cigarette. In the event of a real fire, light up before evacuating!

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That risk assessment has been written by someone who hasn’t been trained to write risk assessments.

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Ironic isn’t it?..

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Seriously, these are a joke with some of the contents. What they tell me is that HQAC don’t take risk assessment seriously. This will lead to those at the coalface deciding not to take it seriously either and then it’s only a matter of time until a serious accident occurs.
I’m hoping they accidently uploaded the jokey drafts to SharePoint and that no-one in a professional H&S role would actually think this was appropriate

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