St Andrew’s Church and Church Centre have a comprehensive approach to managing risk. This page summarises the approach, provides templates and a generic worked example of a risk assessment.
Risk Assessments for joint events. In January 2019, the joint St Andrew’s and All Saints PCCs unanimously agreed that approval of risk assessments for all joint events (except those taking place at All Saints) will be delegated to St Andrew’s PCC and follow the approach outlined on this page. Any events for All Saints only, or joint events taking place at All Saints will remain the responsibility of All Saints PCC.
St Andrew’s has a complete Health & Safety Policy and supporting Health and Safety responsibilities and rules. In essence these provide and maintain safe and healthy conditions in the church centre and ensure the health, safety and welfare of all using the centre for normal activities and events. At least annually the Wardens carry out a risk assessment of the church centre, including the buildings and grounds (up to the external boundary). These assessments look at all the issues regarding the normal use of the church centre, e.g. all normal church services, youth groups and outside groups using the centre for meetings. They also include car parking, normal maintenance, access, emergencies and regular testing of key items.
St Andrew’s Health and Safety Policy can be downloaded from the Health and Safety page by clicking here.
St Andrew’s Risk Management policy can be downloaded as a PDF file Risk Management Policy
Risk Assessments
Risk assessment is about enabling events and activities to happen safely; not to inhibit them happening.
To support its Risk Management Policy, St Andrew’s have developed a risk assessment approach that event and activity leaders can use. Essentially the organiser MUST ensure that an adequate risk assessment is undertaken and appropriate risk mitigation steps put in place before the event can take place. These risk assessments include circumstances that could cause injury and preventative measures such as Disclosures for those working with young people and vulnerable adults. It is recommended that all event organisers adopt a risk management / risk mitigation approach from the commencement of their planning for the event, rather than leaving it as something to try retrofit near to the event happening. For St Andrew’s related events these risk assessments must be undertaken at least 2 weeks before the event and sent to the PCC Secretary for approval by the PCC (as they decide appropriate) before the event can take place. Until this approval is given, the event cannot take place.
St Andrew’s has standard risk assessment sheets available for undertaking risk assessments for events. These or something equivalent (providing the methodology used is clear and robust) can be used and training is available (contact Derek Barnes). The key thing is that the ‘organiser’ is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate risk assessment is undertaken, mitigation / risk reduction actions agreed as necessary and that all those involved with organising and managing the event are aware of them and put them into practice.
There are two variants on the recommend risk assessment sheets as follows:
- An Excel Workbook. This is the recommended approach as it contains a number of automatic calculations that can be used to make life easier for you. Please first read and understand he ‘Instructions’ worksheet (tab at the bottom) and look at a worked example before you start to populate the main ‘Risk’ worksheet. The Excel Workbook is available to download here: Risk Assessment Excel
- A Word approach for those not familiar with Excel. This consists of:
- A PDF document containing the instructions can be downloaded here – Risk Assessment Word Instructions
- A Word document for manually capturing the risk assessment can be downloaded here – Risk Assessment Word Version
Risk Assessment for going on Common
St Andrew’s has produced a generic risk assessment for going onto the common adjacent to the church.
If you are the leader of a group planning to go onto the common (called an event), please:
- Download a PDF copy of the generic risk assessment for going onto the common (Generic Risk Asses for going on Common).
- Review it for your event. Does it adequately cover all the main risks?
- If not, then download the Excel version (Excel Generic Risk Assessment for going on Common) and appropriately update for your event. If it is significantly different from the generic risk assessment, then PCC approval will be required; however if the variations are only minor, this is not needed.
- Appropriately communicate who needs to do what and when to all involved.
Have a safe event.