Health and safety admin: what you can hand over

Key takeaways

Health and safety admin support can take the paperwork off a small employer: tracking risk assessment reviews, training records, inspections, accident records and contractor documents. The duties themselves stay with the employer. HSE guidance says businesses with five or more employees must write down their health and safety policy and the significant findings of risk assessments.

• Five or more employees: written policy and recorded findings.
• Outsource: tracking, records, reminders and filing.
• Keep: risk decisions, controls and competent advice.
• Review risk assessments when work changes.

What health and safety admin does a small firm have?

Keeping the policy and risk assessments current, recording training and refreshers, scheduling inspections and equipment checks, recording accidents and reporting certain incidents under RIDDOR, collecting contractor insurance and method statements, and filing everything so it can be shown to an inspector or insurer.

• Which business processes should you outsource?
• RAMS preparation: risk assessments and method statements

Which parts can be outsourced?

The tracking and records: review reminders for risk assessments, training records and expiry alerts, inspection scheduling, filing accident records, preparing RIDDOR reports for the employer to check and submit, and collecting contractor documents. These are rule-based and easy to fall behind on.

• Review reminders and schedules.
• Training records and expiry alerts.
• Accident record filing.
• Contractor document collection.

• Training records admin: track certificates and renewals
• Compliance monitoring: owners, evidence and early warnings

Which duties stay with the employer?

Assessing risks and deciding controls, consulting employees, making sure work is done safely and appointing competent help. HSE expects employers to have access to competent advice, which can be an external consultant, but responsibility stays with the employer. Admin support makes the duties easier to meet; it does not take them on.

• Regulated processes: outsource the work, keep the duty
• Facilities admin: contractors, checks and renewals

When is outsourced admin not enough?

In higher-risk work, such as construction, manufacturing or care, you need competent health and safety advice as well as admin support. Admin keeps records current; it cannot judge whether a control is adequate.

• Processes a manufacturer can outsource, and what stays
• Care provider admin: what can be outsourced?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: risk assessments are written once and never reviewed, while training certificates expire unnoticed. A simple tracker with review dates and expiry alerts keeps both current.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Health and safety admin checklist

Keep these current.

• Written policy if five or more employees.
• Risk assessments with review dates.
• Training records with expiry alerts.
• Inspection and equipment check schedule.
• Accident book and RIDDOR records.
• Contractor insurance and method statements.

• Operations processes to outsource as you grow
• The process selection score: outsource, split or keep?

Next step

Tell us your sector and how health and safety records are kept today. We will suggest a tracker and the admin we could run.