Notes for GC3

Observations should show:

 Hazard
 Consequence (specific injuries relating to the hazard – “hand injury” from a blade is not enough. It
would need to state “cuts or loss of limb “ would get the mark)
 Immediate action – how to reduce the risk of the hazard straight away
 Long-term action – how to ensure the risk of the hazard is reduced in future
 Timescale – needs to be realistic. Immediate actions need to be ideally within a day. Long term
actions should be specific. “Ongoing” is not appropriate.

Introduction should be brief and contain factual information about when and where you undertook the
inspection. Include information on the activities and what is used to undertake them. Also include info on
who works there (how many and what their roles are)

Main findings need to be structured as follows:

 Hazard
 Hazardous event
 Consequence
 How it can be remedied
 Moral argument – obligation to staff, public perception etc
 Legal breach (state legislation as per syllabus, not local legislation. For IGC this will be ILO)
 Financial arguments – cost of breach versus the cost to remedy

Try and make each of your main findings follow the same format.

Each section of your main findings should focus on one type of hazard but it can cover several of the same
type that you have mentioned in your observation sheet. Ensure you only use information already on the
observation sheet.

Conclusions summarise the main findings. Do not include anything additional here and be clear and
concise. They should include some persuasive argument for management to take action.

Recommendations should again only be related to what is in your main findings and conclusions. Do not
include any other information here even if it is on your observation sheet. Ensure that your priorities match
those on your observation sheets to remain consistent. Be realistic in what can be achieved and show capital,
time and staff resources that will be required. The costs of new machinery is not just the purchase
price. There is staff training for learning how to use it, downtime for installation and management time for
procurement etc.

The Executive summary needs to be short and to the point. State what you have done (i.e. the observation),
location and a very brief summary of the main findings you have discussed and the action that should be
taken and why. Just to stress, this is the part of the report Managers will go to first to establish what the main
issues are. This is why it is important that the discussion in the main findings, conclusions, recommendations
and exec summary are around the same topics. If they vary, it makes the report difficult to follow.

Keep the report factual as Management are generally not interested in opinion unless it can be supported
with relevant data. Avoid words like “surprisingly” when writing about good practice or “as expected” when
discussing improvements that need to be made. This can be taken as sarcasm and remember you are writing
about a site that your reader is in charge of so this can be taken as a subtle (or not so subtle) negative
comment on how a Manager is performing and this is not the purpose of the report. Managers do like to see
some positive comments, hence marks are awarded for good practice areas in the observation sheets. A
short sentence highlighting this in the exec summary would also be acceptable.