Point of work risk assessment

What a point of work risk assessment is

A point of work risk assessment (POWRA) — also called a dynamic risk assessment or pre-start check — is a short check the people doing the work run on themselves immediately before they start. It is not a long document. It takes about five minutes and asks one underlying question: does what is actually in front of us match what the RAMS assumed?

The RAMS describes the planned task: the method, the hazards the planner could foresee and the controls for them. But a RAMS is written in an office, sometimes weeks before, and a live site changes by the hour — other trades move in, weather turns, an isolation that was meant to be in place is not, a wall that was assumed solid turns out to be pre-2000 fabric. The POWRA is the catch for everything that is different on the day.

Why it exists

There is no UK law that names a “POWRA”. What the law requires — under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 — is a risk assessment that is “suitable and sufficient”, and for variable or unsupervised work a single up-front assessment often isn't. A quick, recorded pre-start check is the standard, defensible way of keeping the assessment suitable and sufficient as conditions change, and it puts the judgement where it belongs: with the people closest to the work, who are usually best placed to spot an emerging hazard first.

A POWRA never replaces the RAMS

This matters. The POWRA sits under the RAMS — it confirms the RAMS still holds, or flags that it doesn't. It does not authorise a different method, and it is not a substitute for a proper site-specific risk assessment and method statement. If the check shows the job no longer matches the RAMS, the answer is not to improvise around it; it is to stop and get the RAMS looked at.

When to stop and escalate

Most checks come back clear and you proceed. Some throw up small things you can put right before you start — fix them, then re-check. But a few answers should stop the job outright:

• buried or overhead services not located, or an isolation not proven dead (live – dead – live);
• asbestos not ruled out before disturbing the fabric of a pre-2000 building;
• anything material changed from what the RAMS describes — scope, conditions or method — or a new hazard introduced by others.

When any of those is the case, do not start. Make the area safe, escalate to your supervisor, and expect the RAMS to need revising and re-briefing before work goes ahead. Continuing to work to a RAMS that no longer reflects the site turns a compliance document into a liability — and removes the protection it was meant to give the people on site.

Dynamic risk assessment, in brief

The pre-start check is one moment; dynamic risk assessment is the same discipline carried on through the task. A workable way to think about it as things change around you: weigh up the situation, decide whether to carry on or pause, choose a safe way of working that fits the new circumstances, and confirm it is genuinely proportionate before committing — and re-check the moment conditions, the team or the method change again.

This tool prompts the check and structures the record. The stop, fix or go decision rests with the people doing the work and their supervisor on site.