National General Certificate in

The National Examination

Board in Occupational Safety
and Health (NEBOSH)
Occupational Health and Safety
Dominus Way,
Meridian Business Park,
Leicester LE19 1QW
Tel: +44 (0) 116 263 4700
Fax: +44 (0) 116 282 4000
Unit NG2: Risk assessment
Email: [email protected]
www.nebosh.org.uk
Guidance and information for learners
and Learning Partners
Version: 4
Specification date: October 2018
Publication date: May 2021
Registered Charity Number: 1010444
© NEBOSH. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted
in any form, or by any means, electronic, electrostatic,
mechanical, photocopied or otherwise, without the express
permission in writing from NEBOSH.
Course Part 1 Guidance for learners
Overview
Contents Learning outcome 4

Assessment criteria 4

Introduction 4

Stages of assessment 5

Location 11

Assessment time and tutor guidance 11

Assessment forms and submitting Unit NG2 for marking 12

Results 14

Resubmission if you have been referred in the assessment 14

Part 2 Guidance for Learning Partners

Setting up the assessment 16

Location 16

Guidance on assessment completion 16

A Learning Partner’s staff, family or friends taking the Unit NG2 assessment 16

Assessment submission 17
 Part 1:
Guidance for learners
Part 1 Learning outcome The rest of this guidance tells you what you
need to do to complete the assessment.
Guidance for Do a general risk assessment in their workplace,
profiling and prioritising risks, inspecting the
The guidance also contains some helpful
hints and tips (including information on
learners workplace, recognising a range of common
how to complete the various forms).
hazards, evaluating risks and (taking account
of current controls), recommending further An assessment pack has been produced to provide
control measures and planning actions. you with everything that you will need to complete
the assessment. This can be downloaded from
the NEBOSH website (www.nebosh.org.uk).
Assessment criteria When completing your risk assessment it can be
Produce a risk assessment of a workplace which difficult to know how much detail is enough.
considers a wide range of identified hazards (drawn
So here are some useful tips. Your risk assessment
from elements 5-11 of the NG syllabus) and meets
should not be about creating huge amounts of
best practice standards ‘suitable and sufficient’.
paperwork, but should instead be about identifying
sensible and proportionate measures to control
Introduction the risks in your workplace. We want your risk
assessment to be realistic and the level of detail
The aim of this assessment is for you to practically
to be proportionate to the level of risk in your
apply the knowledge and understanding that
organisation. To help you with this exercise we
you have gained from your studies. To do this,
have based this risk assessment format on the
you will need to complete a risk assessment of
Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) approach
your workplace. Before you start the assessment,
to risk assessment. You can refer to the risk
you must have completed your studies of the
assessment guidance, examples and FAQs on
whole of the NG syllabus (elements 1 to 11).
the HSE website http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/
controlling-risks.htm and the completed example
The stages of the assessment are as follows: provided by NEBOSH in the assessment pack.
We have also included in the forms approximate
Description
Prioritise 3 Review, word counts for each section. These word counts
of the
Risk should be used as a guide only and should not
organisation actions with communicate
and methodology assessment justification and check be seen as an absolute minimum or maximum.
used

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 4

Part 1 Stages of assessment You should include the following information:
1. the name of the organisation;
Guidance for Description
Prioritise 3 Review,
of the 2. site location (you don’t need to give
learners organisation
and methodology
Risk
assessment
actions with
justification
communicate
the full address, just the general
and check
used location eg, Leicestershire);
3. how many workers are employed
You must use the headed tables in Part 1 by the organisation;
of the assessment pack to complete the
description of the organisation and the 4. a general description* of the organisation,
risk assessment methodology used. which must include information
on products manufactured and/or
Start by giving a clear and concise description services provided, the types of activities
of your chosen organisation (normally the undertaken and shift patterns worked;
organisation you work for, but it doesn’t have
to be). You can hide the name and location of 5. a description of the area to be included
your organisation if you like (for confidentiality) in the risk assessment; and
by using false details, but everything else 6. any other relevant information eg, who
needs to be factual. You also need to think has the day-to-day responsibility for health
about the scope of the risk assessment. For and safety in your organisation. If you feel
example, are you going to look at the whole there is nothing relevant here, you do not
organisation or just a specific department/division need to include this in the description.
etc? If you work for a large organisation, we
* The description of the organisation should
recommend that you concentrate on a part of
be detailed enough to ‘paint a picture’ for the
the organisation or a specific activity or process.
examiner (who may not be familiar with your
If you are unsure, ask your tutor for advice.
industry) to allow them to understand what
Your assessment is going to be marked by an your organisation does. For example, ‘garage-
examiner appointed by NEBOSH. The examiner related activities’ is far too brief. Something
will need a clear description of your organisation like this would be better (extract from the
to allow them to judge whether your risk worked example in the assessment pack):
assessment is suitable and sufficient. If you provide
an unclear or incomplete description, this could
affect the marking of the risk assessment.

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 5

Part 1 …
NGG Ltd is a medium-sized garage with offices, vehicle
Guidance for repair shop and paint spray booth. The business does
learners a lot of body repairs on vehicles involved in accidents
for insurance companies. Servicing and MOTs are also
carried out for members of the public. Typical activities
undertaken include moving spare parts from the stores
to the workshop area, engine repairs, activities relating
to servicing/MOTs, body repair, draining fuel/oil from
vehicles, spray booth activities (including the use of
paints that are solvent based). The garage operates
from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and is closed at the
weekends. Workers are only required to work 7 hours
per day so there are staggered start and finish times in
place.
…

You will then need to outline how you carried out the
risk assessment (methodology used). You will need to
include:
• the sources of information that you consulted;
• who you spoke to; and
• how you identified:
- the hazards;
- what is already being done; and
- any additional controls/actions that may be
required.
You may also include anything else that is relevant to
the completion of the risk assessment.
Please note that this section can be completed after
you have completed your risk assessment.

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 6

Part 1 Description
of the
Risk
Prioritise 3 Review,

Guidance for organisation

and methodology assessment
actions with
justification
communicate
and check
learners
used

You must use the table in Part 2 of the assessment pack to complete the risk assessment.
You will now need to complete a risk assessment of your organisation.
You must find and record at least 10 different hazards that are taken from at least
5 different hazard categories. For the avoidance of doubt, hazard categories for this
assessment are the topic headings for Elements 5 – 11 of the NG syllabus as shown in Table 1:

Element Hazard categories

5 Noise; vibration; radiation; mental ill-health; violence at work; substance abuse at work

Work related upper-limb disorders (ergonomics, workstation design etc); manual

6 handling; load handling equipment

7 Hazardous substances (chemical or biological)

Health, welfare and work environment; working at height; confined spaces; lone
8 working; slips and trips; movement of people and vehicles in the workplace; work-related
driving

9 Work equipment and machinery

10 Fire

11 Electricity

Table 1

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 7

Part 1 Your risk assessment must include details on: You must not include photographs, drawings etc in
your risk assessment.
• the hazard and the hazard category (column 1)*;
Guidance for So that you can get an idea of the level of detail
• who may be harmed and how (column 2);
learners • what you are already doing to control the hazard
required and the way that columns 3 and 4 work
together, please see the example in Table 2 (this has
(column 3)**; been extracted from the full example that is included in
• what further controls or actions might be needed the assessment pack).
(column 4)** – remember you must take account
of the hierarchy of control and the principles of
prevention in deciding on further controls;
• what the timescales are for completion of each
action (column 5); and
• the role of the person responsible for completing
each action (column 6).
Important note: please ensure that ALL columns
are completed with realistic information. If you have
nothing to include, for example under additional
controls/actions, please put N/A or similar, do not leave
the column blank. The NG2 example on the NEBOSH
website shows examples of where N/A (or similar) must
be used.
*Column numbers – please see Table 2.
**When you complete your risk assessment you will
see that columns 3 and 4 work together. If you are
already doing enough to control the risk, there will be
a lot of controls listed in column 3 but very few (if any)
in column 4 (you might even just note that no further
action is necessary). On the other-hand, if you have very
few controls in place, column 3 will contain very little
and column 4 will contain a lot more. Both of these
scenarios are fine because they are realistic.

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 8

Part 1 Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6
Guidance for Hazard category and Who might be
hazard harmed and how?
What are you
already doing?
What further
controls/actions are
Timescales for Responsible person’s
further actions to be job role
learners required? completed
(within...)
Vibration Workers in the Maintenance Monitoring system to 1 month Workshop Manager
workshop area programme in place be set up to ensure
Sanding and grinding for all hand-held that vibration tools
activities Excessive use of or equipment, including are not used for an
use of faulty hand- vibrating equipment excessive time
held tools such as disc
cutters, sanders and All workers are trained Look at rotas to 1 week Workshop Manager
grinders could lead to in the use of vibration ensure workers are
hand-arm-vibration hand-held tools moved between
(HAV) conditions such activities
as vibration white There is an ‘unwritten
finger rule’ that only tools Look into setting up 6 months Finance Director
that have been a health surveillance
designed to reduce programme for all
the risk of HAVs affected workers
should be purchased
Tool-box talks to be 6 months / ongoing Workshop Manager
held at least twice a
year on the effects of
vibration from hand-
held tools

Formalise the purchase 6 months Finance Director

policy to ensure that
only suitable equiment
is purchased to reduce
the risk of HAVs

Evaluation of the 1 month Finance Director and

level of our workers’ Workshop Manager
exposure to vibration
should be carried out
to ensure that the
daily exposure and
action values are not
being exceeded

Table 2

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 9

Part 1 Description
of the
Risk
Prioritise 3 Review,
Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
Please note that you are not expected to include
Guidance for organisation
and methodology assessment
actions with
justification
communicate
and check detailed descriptions of the Regulations. You
learners
used
just need to say what the duties under the
regulations are. For example, you could say that
You must use the table in Part 3 of your employer has a duty to eliminate or reduce
the assessment pack to prioritise your risks to health and safety from noise at work.
actions and justify your selection. • Consideration of the likelihood AND severity
Once you have completed the risk assessment, (taking account of current control measures) of
which includes allocating actions, you must injury, ill-health or harm occurring. This must
pick what you consider to be the 3 highest include consideration of the types of injury,
priority/most urgent actions needing ill-health or harm likely to be seen, the number
attention. These actions can be associated of workers at risk, how often the activity is
with the same or different hazards/hazard carried out and how widespread the risk is,
categories; the important thing is that they eg, does the same threat exist in other parts/
need to be your highest priorities for action. branches/divisions/sites of the organisation?

You must give a justification for why you think • Detail on how effective each of your chosen
these are the highest priority/most urgent actions is likely to be in controlling the risk.
actions. Your justification must include: Here you must describe:

• Moral, general legal and financial > the intended impact of the action;
arguments for all actions. The legal arguments > justification for the timescale
must cover duties that would apply to all that you indicate in your risk
workplace situations such as the duties under assessment for the action; and
the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
> whether you think the action
• Specific legal arguments, consideration of will fully control the risk.
likelihood and severity and the action’s
effectiveness in controlling the risk for
EACH action. Your legal argument must
reference relevant UK-specific legislation where
applicable, eg, when talking about the control
of hazardous substances you should reference
relevant duties under the Control of Substances

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 10

Part 1 Description
of the
Risk
Prioritise 3 Review,
Learning Partner will help you to make
arrangements for the assessment to be
Guidance for organisation
and methodology assessment
actions with
justification
communicate
and check
carried out at other suitable premises.

learners
used
Before carrying out the assessment, you must
speak to the management at the premises to
You must use the tables in Part 4 of the ensure that you can carry out the inspection
assessment pack to complete the review, without endangering your own health and safety
communicate and check exercise. (so that advice can be given on any restricted
areas, whether PPE must be worn, etc).
The final part of the assessment is to:
1. set a realistic review date for the risk
assessment and say when you would Assessment time and tutor guidance
review the risk assessment and why; The time needed to complete the assessment is
2. indicate how the findings of the risk not restricted. We do, however, recommend that
assessment are to be communicated you take around 3 hours to complete all four
(verbal or written and the methods to parts of the assessment. We feel that the 3 hours
be used, eg, email, noticeboards) and will allow you to show your understanding of the
who needs to know the findings; and assessment requirements and complete a good
quality risk assessment. Please note that the 3
3. indicate how you will follow up on
hours is for guidance; you may choose to take
the risk assessment to check that the
more or less time to complete your assessment.
actions have been carried out.
We advise that you discuss your approach
with your tutor after reading this guidance.
Location They can give you advice on whether you are
The assessment must be carried out in your ‘heading in the right direction’ – for example,
own workplace. This means that your risk they may comment on whether you have
assessment will be realistic and provide added chosen a suitable workplace or situation that
value for you and your organisation. Your will give enough scope to be able to tackle this
workplace should be large enough to provide a assessment properly. Do not submit drafts of
sufficient range of hazard categories/hazards. your work to your tutor as they are not allowed
to pre-mark or comment on specific details.
If you do not have access to a workplace
please speak to your Learning Partner. Your

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 11

Part 1 Assessment forms and submitting
Unit NG2 for marking
continued as this will help the examiner when they
are marking your assessment. An example follows.
Guidance for Your assessment can either be hand written We would recommend that you submit
learners or completed electronically. The assessment electronically, but understand that there will be
pack contains two sets of forms; one occasions when this is not possible. The headings
for a hand written assessment and the in both sets of forms are the same, so feel free
other for an electronic assessment. to choose the format that is best for you.

Electronic forms
When you start your assessments you must Both sets of forms have been designed
double-click the page footer and insert your to take you through all of the assessment
learner number and name on the first sheet. sections. Completing all sections of the forms
The page numbering will change automatically and referring to this document for additional
as you increase the number of pages that you guidance should help to ensure that you
use. Please ensure that you use a font and font receive a ‘Pass’ for your assessment. It is also
size that is easy to read eg, Arial size 10 to 12. recommended that you refer to the ‘worked
Hand written forms example’ so that you can see what level of detail
You must ensure that your learner number is required for each section. The example can
and name are written on the top of every be downloaded from the resources section on
form. Additionally, you must all ensure that the qualification page of the NEBOSH website.
you include the page numbers at the top of
every sheet where indicated eg, page 2 of 8.
For handwritten submissions, we recognise that
sometimes you might not have enough room for
everything that you want to add. So, if you are
running out of room, simply indicate that there
will be a continuation of the content by writing
‘continued’ where the content is to be broken; the
remaining content can then be completed on the
continuation sheet - write ‘continued’ before the
content. You need to make it clear what is being

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 12

 Example continuation sheets
Part 1
Guidance for Name of organisation* National General Garage Ltd (known as NGG Ltd)

learners Site location* Leicestershire

Number of workers 24 workers

General description of the NGG Ltd is a medium sized garage with offices, vehicle repair shop and paint spray booth. The business does a lot
organisation of repairs and maintenance on commercial vehicles and body repairs on vehicles (mainly cars and vans) that have been
involved in accidents for insurance companies. Servicing and MOTs are also carried out for members of the public. Typical
activities undertaken include moving spare parts from the stores to the workshop, engine repairs, activities relating to
servicing/MOTs, body repair, draining fuel/oil, spray booth activities (including the use of paints that are solvent based).

Continued …

Description of the area The garage and spray booth activities; the office area has a separate risk assessment.
to be included in the risk
assessment

Any other relevant The Finance Director (who reports directly to the Managing Director) has direct responsibility for health and safety.
information

Name of organisation*

Site location*

Number of workers

General description of the Continuation …

organisation
The garage operates from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and is closed at the weekends. Workers are only required to work 7
hours per day so there are staggered start and finish times in place.

Description of the area

to be included in the risk
assessment

Any other relevant

information

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 13

Part 1 Submission
Your assessment (Parts 1 - 4) must be
on the number of times that you can resubmit
the practical for marking. However, you must
Guidance for entirely your own work. By submitting your remember that both of the unit assessments (NG1
and NG2) must be passed within a five-year period.
learners assessment for marking, you are declaring that
it is your own work. Falsely claiming that your
assessment is your own work is malpractice
and NEBOSH may impose severe penalties, as
set out in the NEBOSH Malpractice Policy.
Your assessment must be submitted to your
Learning Partner electronically as a PDF (portable
document format) document. If you do not know
how to, or are unable to, produce a pdf document,
please ask your Learning Partner for advice.
Your Learning Partner will tell you the date that
they need to receive your assessment. Once
received, your assessment will be upload to
NEBOSH for marking. If you fail to submit your
assessment to your Learning Partner by the date
requested, you will be marked as ‘absent’.

Results
We aim to issue results within 50 working
days of the date of the assessment.

Resubmission if you have been

referred in the assessment
You can only achieve a ‘Pass’ or ‘Refer’ for the
assessment. If you need to resubmit you will
need to register for the assessment again and
pay the appropriate fee. You are not limited

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 14

 Part 2:
Guidance for Learning Partners
Part 2 This section of the guidance either expands on the
detail in Part 1 or gives specific information for
Guidance on assessment completion
Guidance Learning Partners that is not relevant to learners.
You may give your learners guidance on whether
they are ‘heading in the right direction’ – for
for Learning example, you may comment on whether
Partners Setting up the assessment they have chosen a suitable workplace or
situation that will give sufficient scope to
You can set up the practical assessment for ‘On
achieve the necessary breadth and depth of
Demand’ assessments on any date that you
content required. You must not carry out a
choose; it is not dependent on the Unit NG1
pre-mark prior to submission to NEBOSH.
assessment date. For Standard Date assessments,
the submission (upload date) will be the same
as the written examination (NG1). Please see A Learning Partner’s staff, family or
‘Assessment submission’ for further details. friends taking the Unit NG2 assessment
You must declare in writing to NEBOSH any staff
Location member, spouse, family or other close personal
The assessment should normally be carried out relationship with any learner taking the NG2
in your learner’s own workplace. If your learner assessment. You must refer to the instructions
does not have access to a workplace, you must given in the document ‘Instructions for Conducting
help the learner make arrangements to carry out Examinations’ for further information.
the practical assessment at suitable premises.
If you are running the practical in this way,
you should contact the Customer Experience
team at NEBOSH for advice and approval.
You should ensure that, before the learner
carries out the assessment, they speak to the
management at the premises. This is to ensure that
the learner can carry out the inspection without
endangering their own health and safety (so that
advice can be given on any restricted areas etc).

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 16

Part 2 Assessment submission
Guidance You must satisfy yourself that the assessments
that your learners submit are their own work. By
for Learning submitting their assessments for marking they are
Partners declaring that it is entirely their own work. Falsely
claiming that it is their own work is malpractice
and NEBOSH may impose severe penalties (see the
NEBOSH Malpractice Policy for further information).
You must tell your learners the date that
you will require their completed assessment
by. You must allow sufficient time for the
upload and the following rules apply:
Date from which
Latest date for assessments
Assessment type assessments can be
to be uploaded to NEBOSH
uploaded to NEBOSH
The date specified on the
On demand
The day after the examination request form
registration closing date 10 working days following the
Standard date
written assessment NG1

Assessments must be uploaded in PDF format via

the Course Provider Interface (CPI). Before uploading
the assessments, please make sure that the pages
are in order eg, run from pages 1 to 5 and are
rotated so that they can be immediately read eg,
the pages are the right way up. You will need to
click on the ‘Practical Upload’ tab; this will allow
you to either upload the assessments or, if the
learner fails to submit their completed assessment
to you on time, mark the learner as ‘absent’.

NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety 17