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Risk Assessments

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If you're running an event, you have a duty of care to ensure the safety of anyone who may be affected by the activity.

You need to take the necessary precautions to keep everyone involved safe, as well as those in the vicinity of your activity, otherwise your group could be liable for any accidents and injuries which occur. For example, if you're holding an event externally, are the staff or members of the public in the venue also being considered?

 

Understanding the basics

Every event that's hosted by a student leader needs to be risk assessed. As a Union, we risk assess a number of 'standard' activities you might undertake, including regular society meetings in classrooms, use of the Student Hub and any regular events which involve multiple groups.

If your activity doesn't fall under the scope of a standard assessment, or if it does but poses additional risks (a standard weekly meeting with extra activities, for example) then you will need to create a bespoke risk assessment before your event can take place.

 

 

FAQ's

Your risk assessment acts as a useful checklist of what could go wrong and how you can take appropriate measures to reduce those risks.

It also allows you to indicate the ways you will mitigate against any risks you identify. The intention isn't necessarily to remove the risks, just to show that you have reduced them as much as possible.

If there is an incident as part of your event, you may be required to show your risk assessment to prove you have been diligant in your duty of care.

The most effective way to minimise accidents is by identifying potential risks and working out a way to try to mitigate them. The exact risks applicable to your event will vary depending on a number of factors but you should consider what to include carefully.

Your assessment should list the potential risks you could encounter from the point your event begins to the point where it's completely over. You will then be asked to evaluate the likelihood of something happening against the severity of the outcome if it did.

For example, at an event held near to open water, the likelihood of people falling in may be fairly low - but the severity of the outcome if they did could be quite high.

You will then be asked for control measures you will put into place to mitigate against the risk happening - this may not remove the risk, but it shows how you will attempt to reduce it.

Finally, you'll need to re-evaluate likelihood versus severity, once those mitigations are in place.

What next?

If you feel your event is covered by our standard risk assessment, you should speak to your coordinator who will be able to confirm with you. A copy of this assessment will be registered against your event.

If your event has extra activities involved which are not covered by the standard risk assessment then you should download our template below, add in the extra detail and submit it to us as part of the event booking process.

 

Download Risk Assessment Template