Risk Assessment

Annual Risk Assessments

All societies are assigned a category of risk which determines whether or not they need to complete an annual risk assessment for the next academic year that covers their core activites for the academic year.

If you have not been assigned a category or you are unsure of your category, please email. 

Group 1/Green. This means you do not need to complete an annual risk assessment for your society’s activities. This is because your society’s activities are mostly sit-down meetings on-campus. Although we don’t require an annual risk assessment from you, we do expect you to complete detailed risk assessments on an ad hoc basis for any other events you might be running off-campus or involving riskier activity. If you would like to complete an annual risk assessment anyway, you are more than welcome to do so.

Group 2/Amber. This means you must review your risk assessment from the previous year  and make sure it is still accurate for the current year. You should ensure any dates from last year are updated. You don’t need to start from scratch unless your activities have substantially changed from last year. If there are any activities which you expect to run this year which aren’t included in your exisitng risk assessment, you should add these in, or otherwise complete additional risk assessments for these events on an ad hoc basis. If you do not have access to your risk assessment from last year, email strathunion.societies@strath.ac.uk . 

Group 3/Red. This means you must complete a new annual risk assessment every year. This may be because your society did not submit a complete risk assessment for the previous year, or because you carry out activities which carry significant risk. Your risk assessment should include details of any and all activities your society expects to carry out this year, other than on-campus sit-down meetings and bake sales. If there are any activities which your society expects to carry out but you don’t yet have enough detail to complete, you can submit an additional risk assessment for these events on an ad hoc basis later in the year.

To complete your annual risk assessment, please fill in and return the form below:

Annual risk assessment template

When using the pre-filled template, please make sure all the risks and precautions are relevant to your activity and that you add in any additional risks or precautions. 

Completed forms should be emailed for approval. 

Additional Risk Assessments

For events and trips that fall outwith your normal society activites, you will need to complete and return a risk assessment for these events separately. Please use the same template above and email the completed forms for approval. 

Additional risk assessment template - Events & Activities  

Additional risk assessment template - Trips  

These are some of the factors to consider in your risk assessment:

• Weather (e.g. if it is to be very hot, you need to take precautions against heatstroke, i.e. ensure access to water and sunscreen)
• Trip specific injury risk (e.g. if doing a lot of walking, blisters may be common & you must be prepared with appropriate first aid)
• Location (e.g. if going somewhere very rural, make sure you know where the nearest facilities (shops, hospitals, pharmacies)
• Disease (e.g. regional diseases – malaria, yellow fever, rabies)
• Wildlife (e.g. ticks (need to know preventative measures, how to check for them, how to remove, bite aftercare, warning signs for further infection), or other country specific wildlife)
• Attendee health (e.g. attendees with diabetes, mobility issue, allergies etc.)

Risk assessments must be completed and submitted at least one week before any events/activities and at least two weeks before any trips.