What is a General Risk Assessment (GRA)?

All student groups must have a general risk assessment that covers your regular core activity. For example, if you have weekly training sessions and matches, or fortnightly meetings or rehearsals - anything recurring that relates to your core activity can be covered by your general risk assessment. 


Once your general risk assessment has been approved by the Student Opportunities team, you don’t need to submit an additional event proposal and risk assessment for anything that has been covered by your GRA. You would then only need to submit an event proposal and risk assessment for events outside of your GRA or if you have introduced any additional elements e.g. food or a speaker. 


What will a GRA not cover?

  • Social activity e.g. pub trips needs to be approved separately to your GRA and be submitted via an event proposal. However, you can submit just the one event proposal even if the event is recurring. 

  • Guest speaker events are not covered by your GRA as each speaker needs to be approved by the Student Opportunities team before going ahead. Read more information about guest speakers here.

  • One-off events need their own event proposal and risk assessment.


Where do I find our GRA?

You will find your GRA on your Google Drive in the ‘Shared With Me’ section under the file name ‘Group Name - General Risk Assessment’. If you cannot find it then please let us know so we can get that sorted for you. If your GRA has not been filled out then make sure to get it completed as soon as possible.


Can we update our GRA throughout the year?

Absolutely! All you need to do is make the amendments directly on the shared file on your Google Drive, and then send us a ticket on Freshdesk or email studentopportunities@su.rhul.ac.uk so we can go in and check it. Your risk assessment won’t be valid until you have received confirmation from a member of the Student Opportunities team.


Summer 2023: what do we need to do?

You will need to fill in your risk assessment and update it based on your plans for the upcoming year. 


Please make sure to do this by 13 August. Any group without a general risk assessment will not be able to run any activities or events in Term 1.


What do we need to include on the risk assessment?

Check out this Freshdesk article for more information on filling out a risk assessment. There’s a guidance document attached as well as a template risk assessment which includes example risks.