Introduction
‘BeSMART.ie’ (Business Electronic Safety Management and Risk assessment Tool) is a free online resource provided by the Health and Safety Authority in Ireland, that enables small businesses and the self-employed to prepare both risk assessments and safety statements, in line with their statutory requirements. BeSMART.ie exists in the space of primary prevention. Primary prevention aims to prevent disease or injury before it ever occurs.
BeSMART.ie follows a checklist format and does not provide a risk rating and/or quantitative output. BeSMART.ie follows the standard - IS EN IEC 31010:2019 Risk Management – Risk Assessment Techniques. This is the Irish version of the European EN IEC 31010:2019, Risk management - Risk assessment technique.
While BeSMART.ie aims to provide a practical, user-friendly risk assessment and safety statement tool solution, it may not be suitable for all businesses. The appropriateness depends on various factors, including the business activities, hazards present, specific needs, resources, and circumstances of the business.
BeSMART.ie is not a safety management system. Rather, it enables risk assessment which is one of the four pillars of a safety management system. The other pillars include - safety policy and goals, safety assurance, and safety promotion.
Under Irish legislation (Section 20 of the Safety, Health, and Welfare at Work Act 2005), employers including the self-employed are required to prepare a Safety Statement based on the identification of hazards and risk assessment, as detailed in Section 19 of the 2005 Act. If a relevant code of practice is available, then that is sufficient for businesses with three or less employees. Codes of Practice have been prepared for several work sectors including Construction, Agriculture and Quarries.
The following points should be noted:
- The target audience for BeSMART.ie is small business and the self-employed.
- BeSMART.ie is designed for use by employers or those who have been delegated responsibility for occupational health and safety.
- Registration is not mandatory. Users can register with the BeSMART.ie platform and/or proceed as a guest user. Registration requires an email address and password.
- The HSA does not have access to the end user’s information (i.e., risk assessments and safety information).
BeSMART.ie adopts a plain English approach and there is no technical jargon. All risk assessment information is written in simple English following Ireland’s National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) guidelines.
Scope and functionality
BeSMART.ie is a cloud-based platform. Risk assessment information is stored in the cloud, but the safety statement is downloaded by the end user and stored locally and/or printed.
Currently there are 338 business types on BeSMART.ie along with over 592 hazards/risk assessments and 5,000 controls covering the following sectors:
- Other Business - 268 business types including education, healthcare, hospitality, transport, retail and manufacturing.
- Construction - 37 business types (for example, general builder, block layer, plumber, solar panel installation, painter, scaffolding. Users can develop a Construction Stage Health and Safety Plan from a template which is available if they are appointed as a Project Supervisor Construction Stage (PSCS).
- Agriculture and Agribusiness - 33 business types (for example, dairy farms, agricultural contractors, pig farming, stud farming and farrier).
BeSMART.ie provides bespoke safety Statement templates for:
- Small Business / Agribusiness
- Construction
The platform generates an action list for the end user to follow up on. As users update their risk assessment, this action list gets updated. The action list is also recorded in the safety statement.
BeSMART.ie includes a learning section with sector specific education materials, a FAQ, and links to relevant HSA publications.
Key Statistics
Use of BeSMART.ie- 128,574 users (includes guest and registered users).
- 1,897,562 individual hazards assessed.
- 96,014 risk assessments completed by registered users.
- 228,881 safety statements downloaded.
Data spans 2011 to end of November 2024. |  |
Risk Assessment- 68% of micro enterprises (5 to 9 employees) undertaking risk assessment. This is slightly lower than EU average (ESENER, 2019)
- 83% of small companies (10 to 49 employees) undertaking risk assessment. This is slightly higher than the EU average (ESENER, 2019)
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Business Demography- The construction sector accounts for just under a fifth of businesses in Ireland [19.3%] (CSO, 2023).
- The ‘Other Services’ sector represent 59.4% of enterprises and 59.7% of persons engaged (CSO, 2023).
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Development timeline
- 2011: launch of BeSMART.ie focusing on key small business types (classification of ‘all other business’).
- 2015: construction and agribusiness added.
- 2017: project supervisor at the construction stage added and further technical upgrades.
- 2022: bespoke business types added along with the ability to add/remove a hazard.
- 2024: further technical upgrades and addition of new business types.
The BeSMART.ie process & how to use
Before developing the risk assessment and safety statement, the user must decide whether they would like to (a) register with BeSMART.ie or (b) proceed as a guest user. Registered users can:
- Save progress, complete and review safety statement later.
- Edit/update safety statements.
- Create custom business types.
- Manage their action list online.
The production of the safety statement involves a simple four-step process.
The 4 steps are as follows:
- Business type selection - Select your business type and/or create a custom business type.
- Risk assessment - Based on the business type selection, hazards applicable to that business type are prepopulated. The user answers ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to relevant controls, for all relevant hazards. Users can also add additional hazards as required.
- Consultation & Review - Consult with your employees on hazards that may affect them.
It is important to share the risk assessments with staff and safety representatives and elicit their feedback on all hazards and controls to ensure they are working effectively (i.e., suitability of existing controls, and if any new controls are required). Also, it is important to check whether any other hazards apply (i.e., if work activities change). - Complete, Download and Manage - The system develops an action list. In cases where ‘no’ was selected for any of the controls, the user is given an option to assign a person and date to close out all actions associated with this.
On completion of the process the user downloads an editable output document (in RTF [Word Document] or PDF format). The Safety Statement states how safety is going to be managed in the workplace. It includes all risk assessments which are specific and unique to the business type. This can be amended by the end user – as required.
Users can download the Safety Statement including their risk assessments in both RTF (Rich Text Format) or PDF. The RTF option is best for editing the document.
Once, downloaded, users can personalise and sign their safety statement and manage their action list.
See videos on our HSA YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@HSAchannel/search?query=how%20to%20use%20besmart
The benefits to small business
The benefits of using ‘BeSMART.ie’ include:
- Reduce administration burden.
- Increase guidance & support for employers in the small business sector.
- Simplify management of occupational health and safety.
- Improve staff morale & motivation.
- Raise safety standards thereby reducing absenteeism, downtime, and repair costs.
- Reducing costs to business.
- Protect workers and business viability.
- Reduce the time required for employers to prepare their risk assessments and safety statement.
- Eliminate the perception that many employers have that health and safety is time consuming, onerous, costly, and outside of their competence.
- Increasing compliance levels of small business as owners are empowered to take control and take more responsibility for day-to-day safety management.
Other tools and supports
