A risk assessment involves conducting a thorough audit of your sport club, to ensure that all of your members, volunteers, staff, coaches, spectators, and other participants are as safe as possible.
A good risk assessment for a sport club will take into account your activities, your equipment, and your facilities. It should also assess certain aspects of governance, such as your recruitment and safeguarding policies.
National governing bodies (NGBs), active partnerships (APs), and insurance providers generally require sport and activity clubs to carry out thorough risk assessments. A risk assessment may also be necessary for complying with health and safety law.
How To Write a Risk Assessment for a Sport Club
Below we outline five steps that should form the basis of your sport club’s risk assessment.
Who Should Be Writing the Risk Assessment?
You should not have to do this alone. Assembling a risk assessment team will not only lighten the workload. It will also ensure you get expert insights from across the club.
The risk assessment team could involve committee members, trustees, safeguarding leads, and any trusted individuals with relevant experience. This might include coaches and certain volunteers.
The more varied your risk assessment team, the better you will be able to consider risks from all aspects of your club’s operations.
How to Identify the Risks in Your Sports Club
Thoroughly inspect all of your current facilities and equipment. Also review your activities, including those that do not take place in your own facilities, such as away games and overnight trips.
You should also review certain aspects of your governance, including your safeguarding policies and procedures, your recruitment policy, and your systems for reporting and responding to accidents, injuries, and other incidents.
Review any previous incidents at your club. What went wrong? How did you respond to them, and what steps did you take to prevent the incident from reoccurring?
How to Assess Risks
Having identified the risks in your club, the next step is to assess these risks. This means considering:
- Who is at risk – whether it is coaches, participants, spectators, or volunteers.
- How likely it is that each risk you have identified will lead to harm.
- How severe each possible instance of harm will be for each risk you have identified.
Take Action Against Risks
According to the HSE, you are not expected to eliminate all risks in your sport club. However, you are expected to do “everything reasonably practical” to protect people from harm.
Appoint an appropriate member of the risk management team to monitor every individual risk you have identified and assessed. This person will then be responsible for assessing the risk while implementing any measures to manage them. They will also be responsible for providing routine updates to the trustees and management committee on how they are managing their risks.
Strategies for managing the risks in your club might include:
- A safeguarding audit, to review and improve certain aspects of your club’s governance.
- Revising your policies and procedures, and ensuring they are clear and accessible for everyone.
- Investing in appropriate training for staff and volunteers.
- Reviewing your induction processes for new members.
- Maintenance and repairs, and investing in new equipment if possible.
Creating a Record and Review Process
A risk assessment is not a one-off task. It is an ongoing process that works like a tool for keeping anyone who interacts with your club in any capacity as safe as possible.
Keep good records throughout the risk assessment process. Record all of your key findings, along with the steps you are taking to address the risks in your club. Also record which individual is responsible for monitoring each risk.
Having completed your first risk assessment, date it, and make sure it is accessible throughout your club. You should then aim to regularly review the risks you have identified while also staying on top of any new or growing risks.
Sport and Activity Club Risk Assessment Templates
Your NGB or AP can offer further advice and support. You will also find risk assessment templates online:
- HSE – Managing Risks and Risk Assessments at Work.
- NSPCC risk assessment template for activities. Please note that this advice may only apply to children and young people. If you work with adults, you should look for a template from a resource that specialises in safeguarding adults.
- Club Template – Risk Assessments. From England Athletics. This means that the template may only apply to an athletics club, and it may refer to English legislation. However, you may be able to adapt the template to fit your setting.
Make Sure Your Insurance Covers All Risks
Your NGB or AP may already provide some form of liability coverage as part of your membership. However, this may not mean that your club is covered for all risks. There may be gaps in your cover, for risks such as damage to your facilities and equipment.
James Hallam is an independent Lloyd’s broker with a dedicated team of experienced insurance brokers who are committed to protecting your sport club. We can arrange specialist niche insurance packages for sport clubs to ensure you are covered for all risks.