The Hazard Register - what is it really for? In commercial construction, with my clients, every 'good' SSSP has a hazard register. Sitewise demands one, Prequal demands one. On site, NOBODY uses them, nobody reads them. The best, most immediate and most useful hazard register is an up to date site hazard board. After that TAs and regular individual sub-contractor or site wide pre-start/toolbox talks.
Sadly: TAs used to be conducted on site with the personnel concerned in the task; a useful collaborative health and safety tool. Now someone in an office types them up and the eyes of the users glaze over as they look at a daunting bunch of typing they had nothing to do with and they simply 'sign on the dotted line'. What a PITY such organisations as Prequal do not actually DEMAND that TAs are scruffy, hand scribbled,clearly Collaborative works; that pre-starts and toolbox talks are the same. As it is, a competent person can do absolutely EVERYTHING required for passing Prequal (besides collecting a few signatures) from the keyboard and the sites could all be as dangerous as a war zone.
Too many health and safety persons want to equate H&S documentation with accounting documents or even lawyers' briefs. They do not equate. It is quite possible to have the most labyrinthine, convoluted, complicated h&s documents in the world and STILL have a damn great fire on a site in the heart of a city. Documents don't create safety: culture does!