A hazard is anything that may cause harm, such as an obstacle along a route, an uneven walking trail or a reversing car in a car park. To identify any hazards associated with your event, you should walk your route and venue areas and note what could reasonably be expected to cause harm (this may involve visualising temporary facilities and the hazards associated with them prior to their setup). Where a hazard is present, highlight the related activity within the ‘Event Activities’ column and note the hazard within the ‘Hazard Identification’ column.
Decide who might be harmed and evaluate the risk rating: Identify the groups that may be at risk from the hazard – staff, volunteers, participants, spectators and/or third parties - assign a risk rating to each group based on the chance and severity of someone being harmed.
The risk rating is noted as being low, medium or high which is determined by:
- Low risk: Where minimal hazard is present and therefore the hazard is acceptable.
- Medium risk: Where hazard is present but acceptable with adequate control measures.
- High risk: Where hazard is unacceptable and should be avoided, or requires action to be taken to reduce hazard to an acceptable level