Cleaning Risk Assessment Template (Free, 5×5)

Cleaning Risk Assessment Template

Commercial clients, letting agents and principal contractors ask for a site-specific risk assessment before they let you start. This is the form, with the 5×5 scoring an assessor expects and a prompt list of the hazards a cleaning assessment is normally expected to have considered.

Free, no signup, no email Prints to A4 Written for UK cleaning businesses

Five by five risk matrix: likelihood multiplied by severity
Likelihood ↓ / Severity →	1	2	3	4	5
1	1	2	3	4	5
2	2	4	6	8	10
3	3	6	9	12	15
4	4	8	12	16	20
5	5	10	15	20	25

Likelihood ↓ / Severity →

Hazard

Who might be harmed

Existing controls

Further action needed

By whom / when

Slip on wet floor after mopping

Cleaners, staff, visitors

Wet floor signs; mop in sections; clean out of hours where possible

Signs to remain until dry, not until the cleaner leaves

Supervisor, each visit

What a 5×5 risk matrix is, and why clients ask for one

A 5×5 matrix scores each hazard twice: how likely harm is on a scale of one to five, and how severe it would be on the same scale. Multiplying the two gives a risk rating from 1 to 25, which bands into low, medium, high and unacceptable.

The point is not the arithmetic, it is that it forces a consistent judgement and makes priorities visible. A hazard scoring 20 gets dealt with before one scoring 4, and an assessor reading your document can see at a glance whether you have thought about it or written "low risk" against everything.

Clients ask for scored assessments because unscored ones cannot be compared or audited. A facilities manager reviewing three contractors' documents is looking for whether the significant risks were identified and rated honestly, and an assessment with no high scores anywhere reads as one nobody took seriously.

Score	Band	What it means in practice
1–4	Low	Acceptable. Monitor, no further action required.
5–9	Medium	Reduce where reasonably practicable. Record what you did.
10–16	High	Additional controls required before work proceeds.
20–25	Unacceptable	Do not proceed. The work must be redesigned or stopped.

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Residual risk is the number that matters

The most common mistake on a cleaning risk assessment is scoring the hazard as if no controls existed. Mopping a floor with no signage, no training and no procedure genuinely is high risk; that is not the question the form is asking.

Score the residual risk: what remains once the controls you have listed are actually in place. That is what tells a reader whether your existing measures are enough, and it is why the "existing controls" column comes before the scores rather than after.

If the residual score is still high, the honest response is further action, not a lower number. An assessment that scores everything as low is the one an auditor stops trusting.

The hazards cleaning assessments routinely miss

Slips, manual handling and chemicals are on every cleaning risk assessment. These are the ones that get left off and then come up at audit.

Lone working. Cleaning is overwhelmingly done alone, often out of hours in an empty building. If there is no check-in procedure with a named contact and an escalation if they do not call, that is a gap.
Sharps in waste. Including in ordinary office washrooms. A procedure and a sharps kit, or an instruction never to compress a bin by hand.
Asbestos. In any building constructed before 2000, the duty holder should hold an asbestos register and you are entitled to see it before disturbing anything.
Violence and aggression. Relevant in retail, healthcare, education and any public-facing site.
Vibration. Prolonged use of rotary machines and scrubber-driers is a real exposure over years, not a technicality.
Vulnerable people on site. Cleaning in schools, care homes and hospitals changes both the risk and the controls.

Risk assessment, method statement, RAMS

The three terms get used interchangeably and are not the same thing. A risk assessment identifies hazards and rates them. A method statement describes, step by step, how the work will be carried out safely. RAMS is simply the two submitted together, which is what a principal contractor normally means when they ask.

A COSHH assessment is a third, separate document covering hazardous substances specifically. Your risk assessment should reference it rather than duplicate it.

For most commercial tenders you will need all three, site-specific, plus insurance certificates and training records. Being able to produce them the same day is a genuine commercial advantage over competitors who cannot.

Frequently asked questions

01 Do cleaning companies legally need a risk assessment?

Yes. Every employer in Great Britain must assess the risks to employees and to anyone else affected by the work, under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations. Employers with five or more employees must record the significant findings. Self-employed cleaners whose work can affect others are covered too.

02 What should a cleaning risk assessment include?

The site and activity assessed, the hazards identified, who might be harmed and how, the control measures already in place, a rating of the residual risk, any further action needed with an owner and a date, and the name of the assessor with the assessment and review dates. Scoring on a 5×5 matrix is the format most commercial clients expect.

03 Can I use a generic cleaning risk assessment?

A generic template is a starting point, not a finished assessment. HSE requires assessments to be specific to the work and the premises, and principal contractors routinely reject generic documents. Use this template as the structure and the prompt list, then walk the site and write down what is actually there.

04 How often should a cleaning risk assessment be reviewed?

At the review date you set, which is commonly annually, and additionally whenever the work changes, the site changes, new equipment or chemicals are introduced, or after any accident or near miss. An assessment with a review date in the past is one of the first things an auditor notices.

05 What is the difference between a risk assessment and a method statement?

A risk assessment identifies the hazards and rates the risk. A method statement sets out the sequence of work and how each step will be done safely. Submitted together they are usually called RAMS, which is what most commercial clients and principal contractors are asking for.

Cleaning Risk Assessment Template