Friday afternoon, RAMS due Monday
A main contractor has accepted your price for a shop fit-out. Before your team can go on site, they want risk assessments and method statements, site specific. The contracts manager opens the RAMS from the last job, a school, and starts editing. The school's name is still on page six. Two tasks that don't apply are left in. The contractor sends it back.
The electricians are ready to start and can't, because the paperwork isn't accepted.
The contracts manager fixes it over the weekend, which is the second weekend this month spent on paperwork rather than pricing.
Why every set starts from the last set
Much of your RAMS is the same across jobs: how your team does containment, cable pulling, working at height from podiums, isolation procedures. What changes is the site: access, working hours, other trades, specific hazards, the main contractor's own requirements. Copying the last document keeps the common parts but drags the old site details along.
There is no library of approved sections, just a folder of old documents.
| Part of the RAMS | Changes per site? |
|---|---|
| Company details and competence | Rarely |
| Task method statements | Sometimes, by scope |
| Site access and welfare | Always |
| Site-specific hazards | Always |
| Main contractor's format and headings | Often |
Main contractors also vary in what they want. One insists on its own template, another wants specific headings, a third needs a separate lifting plan for anything heavier than a light fitting. Each preference gets saved in a different old document, and the contracts manager has to remember which contractor wanted what.
The price of a rejected RAMS
Delayed starts cost labour you've already planned. Contracts managers spend hours on documents instead of pricing. Documents that carry the wrong site details damage your credibility with the main contractor. And the more a document is copied, the more likely it is to contain something out of date.
What goes into RAMS and how risks are controlled is for your competent person to decide. What we fix is the assembly.
A copied document can also contain methods your firm no longer uses, which is a problem if something goes wrong and the paperwork is looked at closely.
A RAMS library that assembles drafts
- Section library: your approved task sections, such as containment, cable pulling, isolation, testing and working at height, are held as separate blocks, each with an owner and a review date.
- Site questions: for a new job, the contracts manager answers a short set of questions about the site, scope, hours and other trades.
- Draft assembly: the relevant sections are pulled together, the site details are inserted, and an AI model drafts site-specific hazard notes from the answers for review. Anything it drafts is marked as a draft.
- Main contractor format: the document is laid out in the main contractor's template where they require one.
- Review and sign-off: your competent person reviews every section, edits, and signs off. Nothing is issued without that.
- Briefing record: the site team confirms they have read the RAMS on their phones, and the record is kept with the job.
Paperwork that keeps up with the work
New RAMS start from a clean, approved library, not an old job. Contracts managers review rather than rewrite. Main contractors get documents with the right site on every page. And when a method changes, the library is updated once and every future document picks it up.
It also helps with new staff. When an electrician joins, they can read the library's task sections to understand how your firm expects work to be done, which is a better introduction than a stack of old site-specific documents.
Does this happen to your RAMS?
- New RAMS are made by editing the last job's document.
- Main contractors send RAMS back for wrong or missing details.
- Starts have been delayed waiting for RAMS approval.
- Nobody is sure which version of each method statement is current.
- You have no record of who on site has read the RAMS.