Health & Safety Arrangements UK: Employer Guide 2025

Overview

Health and safety arrangements are the written framework that sets out how your organisation manages workplace risks day to day. If your general policy is the 'what' (a broad statement of intent), the arrangements are the 'how' (the practical steps, systems, and accountabilities that bring the policy to life).

They typically cover the hazards present in your particular workplace, the controls you use to keep those hazards in check, who holds responsibility at each level of the business, how training is delivered, and the process for reporting, investigating, and learning from incidents. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc.

Act 1974, employers with five or more staff must have a written health and safety policy, and the arrangements section is a core part of that document. Smaller businesses benefit from having one too, even where the law does not require writing it down. Good arrangements are specific to your workplace rather than a generic copy-paste, and they get reviewed whenever something changes.

Key steps

1. Start with an honest risk assessment. Walk through your workplace and identify what could realistically cause harm: machinery, chemicals, manual handling, lone working, display screen use, slips, stress, whatever is relevant to your operation. Record who might be affected and how. This is the foundation everything else sits on, so give it proper time.
2. Decide on practical controls for each risk. For every hazard you have identified, work out what steps reduce the risk to an acceptable level. This might mean physical changes like guards or ventilation, procedural changes like safe working methods, protective equipment, training, or a combination. The goal is proportionate control, not eliminating every theoretical risk.
3. Assign clear responsibilities throughout the business. Health and safety works when everyone knows their role. Name who is accountable for overall oversight, who manages day-to-day compliance, who handles first aid and fire safety, and what every employee is expected to do. Responsibilities should match seniority and competence, and nobody should be left guessing.
4. Write the arrangements down in plain English. Turn your thinking into a document your team can actually use. Avoid jargon and legal boilerplate. Cover how risks are managed, how incidents are reported, how training works, how new staff are inducted, and how contractors are handled on site. If a new starter cannot follow it, it is not written clearly enough.
5. Communicate, train, and review regularly. Arrangements only work if people know about them. Brief your team, build the key points into induction, and refresh training as roles or risks change. Set a review date at least annually, and sooner if you introduce new equipment, new processes, or after any significant incident. Treat it as a living document.

Common questions