Painting and decorating

Painting and decorating is not hazard-free. Care needs to be taken to prevent an accident connected with working at height from a ladder or work platform. Plus there are the added dangers of using flammable materials in the workplace.

These hazards could present risks to staff and others which, left unmanaged, may cause accidents and potentially put you on the wrong side of the law. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, you should complete a risk assessment for painting and decorating activities, which identifies all “significant” hazards and appropriate “reasonable” ways of reducing risks to an acceptable level. You should ensure that your document only addresses “significant” hazards, i.e. any that could, and more importantly are likely to, cause an accident or injury.

Managing the risks

To help you identify the hazards associated with painting and decorating and the appropriate ways of controlling them, use our example Risk Assessment - Painting and Decorating. It covers the generic hazards associated with this type of activity and suggests control measures to reduce risks to an acceptable level. This should help you to manage the risks associated with this task.

Make your instructions clear

Don’t include activities in your document that simply don’t need to be there. Work to the principle that if there is any chance of your staff being unaware of the safe way of doing something, then you will need to make it clear in your document. Finally, always ensure that any control measures you identify and follow are decided upon the principle of “so far as is reasonably practicable”. Note. The list of potential hazards is not exhaustive. However, for your risk assessment to be considered suitable and sufficient in the eyes of the law it must accurately reflect the “significant” hazards associated with the painting and decorating tasks that your staff will be carrying out.