RAMS template. A printable risk assessment and method statement — the hazards and controls on one side, the sequence of work on the other, and the briefing record that proves the gang was told.

RAMS fail in a predictable way: the risk assessment is generic, the method statement describes a different job, and nobody doing the work has read either. An inspector can spot all three in about ninety seconds, because the document describes a task that does not match what is happening on site.

The two halves do different jobs and both are needed. A risk assessment lists what could go wrong; a method statement says what is actually going to happen and in what order. A document that lists hazards and controls but never says how the work will be done is a risk assessment with a cover page, and it is the commonest thing handed over as RAMS.

The briefing record is the half that makes the rest evidence. A RAMS in a folder proves somebody wrote it. A RAMS with the gang's signatures on it, dated the morning of the work, proves the people doing it were told what was in it — which is the question actually asked after an incident.

The review block matters more on RAMS than almost anywhere else, because the method changes on site constantly. The scaffold is not up yet so the sequence flips; the excavation is deeper than expected; a different machine turns up. Each of those makes the signed method statement a description of a job nobody is doing.