Method statements and risk assessments: what they are for
Treated as paperwork they are useless. Treated as planning they prevent most of what goes wrong.
Every site asks for a method statement and risk assessment before work starts. When they are produced by copying a previous job and changing the title, they satisfy nobody and protect no one.
The risk assessment
Identifies what could cause harm during this work, who could be harmed, and what will be done about it. The value is in being specific. "Working at height — use harness" appears in every generic document and tells the team nothing. What anchor point, reached how, inspected by whom, is useful.
The method statement
Describes how the work will actually be done, in sequence. It should be detailed enough that someone who has not done this job before can follow it, and it should reflect the real site, including its access constraints and whatever else is happening nearby.
What makes them work
- Written for this job, on this site, in these conditions
- Produced by someone who has seen the location
- Briefed to the team who will do the work, with the chance to disagree
- Revised when the plan changes — a superseded method statement is worse than none
The briefing is the point
A document nobody has read changes no behaviour. The conversation where the team walks through the sequence and raises what the writer missed is where the safety benefit actually comes from. The signature sheet is evidence of that conversation, not a substitute for it.