Construction RAMS
Site-specific risk assessment and method statements for construction projects, phase by phase.
"Construction" isn't one job. It's a sequence of phases, each with its own trades, plant and hazards, often overlapping on the same live site. A RAMS that tries to cover a whole build in one generic document is either too vague to mean anything, or wrong for most of the work it describes. A principal contractor knows that on first read. So this is what yours has to cover across the phases, to pass first time. Briefkit writes one site-specific to your actual build, not a downloaded template.
Why a construction RAMS has to be split by phase
The most common failing is treating a whole build as a single task. The job changes completely as it moves through its phases. Different trades. Different plant. Different risk profile. The phases overlap, so one stage's work becomes the next one's hazard. A document that doesn't break the job down phase by phase, and activity by activity, can't reflect any of that. It won't survive scrutiny from anyone who knows what they're reading.
Phase 1: Enabling works and site set-up
Before the build proper. Site establishment, hoarding and fencing, welfare, temporary services, demolition and any site clearance.
- Site security and the public: Boundaries, hoarding, keeping the public and site apart.
- Demolition: Its own serious hazard set. Structural collapse, dust, and what's left in the ground.
- Temporary services and welfare: Getting power, water and welfare onto a bare site safely.
- Traffic and access: Establishing how plant and deliveries get on and off before anything's built.
Phase 2: Substructure and groundworks
Excavation, foundations, drainage and below-ground services. Where some of the most serious risks on any build live.
- Excavation collapse: Unsupported or poorly supported trenches and dig faces.
- Buried services: Striking live cables, gas or water that wasn't located before digging.
- Plant and people: Excavators, dumpers, and the interface between heavy plant and operatives on foot.
- Ground and water: Unstable ground, flooding, and deep excavations that become confined spaces.
Phase 3: Superstructure
The build going up. Frame, walls, floors, structural steel or timber, roof. The hazards move upward with the work.
- Working at height: Scaffolds, leading edges, steelwork and partially built structures.
- Lifting operations: Cranes, telehandlers and the loads they swing over a live site.
- Structural stability: Temporary works, and the risk during erection before everything's tied in.
- Falling materials: Tools, blocks and debris from height onto people below.
Phase 4: Fit-out and finishes
The inside work. M&E first and second fix, plastering, joinery, decorating. Where the site fills up with trades.
- Multiple trades, shared space: Sparkies, plumbers, joiners and decorators working over and around each other. One trade's job becomes another's hazard.
- Dust and COSHH: Cutting and sanding. Adhesives, sealants and finishes that come with finishing.
- Electrical: Second-fix electrical work and testing as systems go live.
- Manual handling and access: Materials moved through a building that's still a working site.
Phase 5: External works and handover
Finishing outside and closing the job out. Hard and soft landscaping, drainage connections, road and path surfacing, snagging.
- Plant and surfacing: Rollers, pavers and hot materials, often with the public closer than before.
- Reduced workforce, dropped guard: The end-of-job phase where complacency creeps in.
- Reinstatement and clearance: Removing temporary works and edge protection safely, in the right order.
The risks that run through every phase
Some hazards don't belong to one phase. They're there start to finish.
- Working at height: The single biggest killer in construction, in nearly every phase of a build.
- Plant and traffic: Keeping vehicles and people apart, all the way through.
- Manual handling, HAVS and noise: Across every trade and every stage.
- CDM duties: This is construction proper. The construction phase plan and the principal contractor and designer duties sit over the top of the work.
- Welfare, power and PPE: Site tools off 110v through a transformer, or cordless batteries. Welfare and PPE suited to each phase.
What a construction RAMS that passes scrutiny looks like
- Breaks the work down phase by phase and activity by activity, not "construction" as one block.
- Specific to the site. Its ground, its access, its sequence, the other trades on it. Not a generic build document.
- Accounts for the phases overlapping, where one activity creates risk for another.
- Sits properly under the CDM framework and the construction phase plan.
- Sets out the method for each activity in sequence.
- Names the competencies, plant, PPE and emergency arrangements for that job.
- Reviewed by a competent person and briefed to everyone on site.
"Specific to the site and sequence" is the whole point. It's what a downloaded template can't give you.
RAMS for specific trades
Briefkit also writes RAMS built around individual trades:
Get a site-specific construction RAMS for your job
Briefkit writes the whole document. Site-specific, not from a template. Phase by phase, the trades involved, the cross-cutting hazards, all written around your actual site and sequence. Ready to review and sign off, in minutes. £30. One job, one fee.