RAMS for Small Builders: What Goes in One, and How to Get It Signed on Site

This is general guidance for small builders, not legal advice. Where the answer depends on your own work, ask your health and safety adviser.

What Is a RAMS in Construction, and When Do You Need One?

RAMS stands for risk assessment and method statement. The two are nearly always issued together. The risk assessment says what could hurt somebody and what you are doing about it. The method statement says how the work will be carried out, in order, with those controls built in.

The legal footing is the risk assessment. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers, and self-employed people whose work puts others at risk, to assess the risks of their work, and an employer with five or more employees has to record the significant findings. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, known as CDM 2015, add duties on contractors to plan, manage and monitor their work and to give workers the information and instruction they need.

A method statement is not asked for by name in the same way, but it is the usual way of showing that higher-risk work has been planned. In practice you need a RAMS whenever the work carries significant risk (working at height, excavations, lifting, structural alterations, hot works, live services, heavy dust) and whenever a principal contractor or client asks for one before you start. If you are not sure whether a task needs one, check with your health and safety adviser.

What Goes in the Risk Assessment?

A risk assessment answers three questions for each hazard.

• ✓ The hazard. The thing that can cause harm on this task, in this place: a fall from the scaffold, silica dust from cutting block, a live cable in the wall. Leave out the ones that do not apply.
• ✓ Who is at risk. The operative doing the work, the other trades nearby, visitors, the public on the pavement, the occupier if the house is lived in.
• ✓ The controls. What you are actually doing about it, written so that somebody could check it on the day. “Take care” is not a control. “Guard rails fitted to the tower before use” is.

What Goes in the Method Statement?

The method statement is the plan for doing the work. A usable one covers:

• The work and where it is: what is being done and on which plot, floor or elevation.
• The sequence of work: numbered steps from setting up through to leaving the area safe.
• Plant, tools and materials: what will be used, and any inspection or ticket it needs.
• PPE: the standard site kit plus anything the task adds, such as a dust mask.
• People and supervision: who is doing the work, who is in charge, and the training or cards they need.
• Emergency arrangements: first aider, first aid kit, assembly point, and what to do if the thing you are worried about happens.

A Worked Example: Chasing Out for a New Consumer Unit

Take one first fix task: chasing a block wall in a hallway for the cables to a new consumer unit, in a house being refurbished. This shows the shape of a RAMS. It is not one to copy, because yours has to describe your own site.

Risk assessment

Hazard	Who is at risk	Control
Silica dust from cutting block	The operative, other trades in the house	Wall chaser with on-tool extraction to an M-class vacuum. Suitable dust mask, face-fit tested. Hallway closed to others while cutting.
Electricity	The operative, the electrician	Existing supply isolated, locked off and proved dead by the electrician before any cutting. Battery or 110V tools only.
Hidden cables and pipes	The operative	Wall scanned with a cable and pipe detector and the route marked.
Asbestos in an older property	Everybody in the building	Asbestos survey checked before breaking into the wall. If there is no survey or any doubt, the work does not start.

Method statement

1. Site manager confirms the asbestos survey has been checked and the RAMS is approved.
2. Electrician isolates the supply, locks it off and proves it dead.
3. Scan the wall, mark the chase route and agree it with the electrician.
4. Close the hallway, set up the chaser and vacuum, and check the extraction is working.
5. Cut the chase to the marked depth and clear it out.
6. Vacuum the area. Do not dry sweep.
7. Electrician installs the cables. The supply stays locked off until the electrician releases it.
8. Reopen the hallway and tell the site manager the area is clear.

Plant: wall chaser, M-class vacuum, cable and pipe detector, lock-off kit and voltage tester. PPE: standard site kit plus eye protection, dust mask and hearing protection. Emergency: the first aider and first aid kit are named, and if a cable or pipe is struck the work stops, people are kept clear and the site manager is told.

Who Writes It, Who Approves It and Who Signs On?

Who writes it. Somebody competent who knows how the work is done, usually the supervisor or contracts manager. Subbies normally write the RAMS for their own work and send them to the principal contractor before they arrive.

Who approves it. Somebody with authority who did not write it, typically the site manager, contracts manager or a director.

Who signs on. Everybody carrying out the work, after they have been briefed and before they pick up a tool. So does anybody who joins the task later. If the method changes on the day, stop, revise the RAMS, have it approved again and brief everybody again.

There is more on briefings and inductions in our guide to construction site safety in the UK, and on subbies’ paperwork in subcontractor management.

How Long Should You Keep a RAMS?

We are not going to give you a number of years, because the right answer depends on the work, your contracts and your insurer. Keep them for the life of the project and long enough afterwards to answer a claim, which can arrive years later. Check with your health and safety adviser and your insurer, write the period down, and keep to it. Whatever the period, keep the signatures with the version that was signed.

Where Do RAMS Go Wrong on Small Sites?

Generic copy and paste. The RAMS for the last house with the address changed. It lists hazards that are not there and misses the one that is.

Signed after the work started. The sheet goes round on Friday. A signature is only evidence if it was made before the work, and a paper sheet with no times on it cannot show that.

No record of who was briefed. Six people did the work and four names are on the sheet, or the sheet is in the back of a van.

The wording changed after people signed. Somebody tidies up the Word file and reprints it, and the signatures are now attached to a document those people never read.

These are record-keeping problems, not writing problems. Our guide to construction compliance management covers the wider set of records.

How Does BuildersAI Handle RAMS?

BuildersAI is the all-in-one site management app for UK builders, and RAMS is one section of it, on the phone and in a browser. It does not write the RAMS for you. It gives you a starting point, or takes the RAMS you already have, and records who signed what, and when.

1. Start from something, not a blank page. A project administrator writes a standard method statement as the project’s template, and every new RAMS on that project starts with it. You can also start from a previous RAMS, which copies in its hazards, controls, method statement and PPE for you to check.
2. Tick the hazards. Each hazard you tick arrives with a suggested control measure, which you edit to say what you are actually doing.
3. Choose who signs. Pick the people who have to sign it, or link it to a task and everybody on that task is told to sign on once it is approved. Already have a RAMS, or a subcontractor has sent theirs? Attach it as a PDF instead, and it is read and signed on the phone in the same way.
4. The author signs and sends it for approval. Signing fixes the wording: from then on the hazards, controls, method and PPE cannot be changed by anybody.
5. An admin approves it. An administrator counter-signs it, or sends it back with a reason. A company can choose to let the author approve their own, and the record says so.
6. Everybody on the task signs on, on their own phone. The record shows a tick against each person who has signed, and each signature carries the time it was made.

Signing works with no signal and is sent when the phone next has some. In a browser you can print any RAMS as a record, with who raised it, who approved it and everybody who signed on. The full procedure is on the RAMS help page.

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