A customer, a letting agent or a main contractor asks for "a method statement" before you change a light fitting or take a stud wall down. What they mean is: show me you have thought about this job before you start it. Whether that takes one page or three depends on the job, not on the name of the document. Written from the side of the desk that reads them, here is how to tell.
What the two documents are
A method statement is the sequence of work: what happens first, what next, who does it, and what has to be true before the next step starts. A risk assessment is what could hurt someone on this job and what you will do about it. A RAMS is both in one document, and on a managed site it runs to several pages because it covers a package of work over weeks.
A safe system of work is the short form of both for one task: the task in a line, the hazards with the control beside each, the sequence you can amend on the day, the kit, the stop conditions, and the signatures of the person doing it and whoever briefed it. One page, because the job is one job.
What the law actually says
No regulation uses the words "method statement". Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer and self-employed person to assess the risks of their work, and regulation 3(6) requires the significant findings to be recorded where five or more people are employed. Under regulation 15(2) of CDM 2015 a contractor plans, manages and monitors the construction work under their control, a one-man firm as much as a groundworker on a housing site. Regulation 20 of CDM 2015 goes further for demolition or dismantling: the arrangements are recorded in writing before the work begins.
So the law wants the thinking done; it wants it written down once you employ five or more, for any demolition (regulation 20), and in practice whenever the person who lets you on site asks. It does not say how long the document is.
When one page is enough
A safe system of work is enough when the task is common, the hazards are the ones the trade meets every week, the job is a day or two, and nobody else's work depends on yours. Replacing a fitting, hanging a door, tiling a wet room, boarding a loft, laying a patio: what matters is that the person doing the work has read the controls for this house and signed to say so.
The one page still has to be site-specific. A sheet with "as printed" on every step and no stop conditions ticked is a template with a name on it, and a reviewer will treat it as one.
When a RAMS is needed
A RAMS is needed when the job has interfaces one page cannot hold: other trades above or below you, an occupied building, a package that runs for weeks, plant that needs a lift plan, or a hazard the trade does not meet every week. It is also needed when a principal contractor, under regulation 13 of CDM 2015, will read it against the site: one page will not answer that review's questions.
Some tasks look small and are not. A consumer unit change is a one-page task only for the person who can isolate every source of supply, prove dead, and — in England and Wales — is registered to self-certify or has notified building control; a boiler flue only for the person registered to fit it. Both sheets carry that line, and both stop if it cannot be filled in.
What a template does not do
The sheet gives the hazards, the controls and the sequence for a common task. It does not know your house, and it does not decide whether the job is the common one or the awkward one. A competent person amends it, briefs it and signs it, and no document makes anyone compliant. Why we will never call a document "compliant".
Documents for this work
- The safe systems of work bundle — all twenty one-page sheets
- Safe System of Work — Replacing a Light Fitting
- Safe System of Work — Fitting a Kitchen
- Safe System of Work — Installing a Consumer Unit — with the isolation and test line
- Safe System of Work — Small Demolition of a Non-Load-Bearing Wall — the written arrangements regulation 20 asks for
- The RAMS bundle — the full activity documents for a trade on a managed site
- Why RAMS get rejected — what the reviewer wants when the job does need one