Requirements for safety risk assessment (GG 104)

What is GG 104?

GG 104 sets out the framework for managing safety risks for all populations affected by an activity. An activity is something that does or can have an impact on the safety of our customers, workers or other parties, either directly or indirectly. In a nutshell, GG 104 requires us to think about the consequences of our actions and manage these in accordance with our imperatives, delegated responsibilities and statutory obligations. Activities that do or can have an impact on safety risk for our customer, workers or other parties include:

Direct influences on safety risk

• Planning, preparing, designing, constructing, operating, maintaining, modifying and disposing of assets.

Indirect influences on safety risk

• Revising National Highways requirements and directions, and all procedures, policies and strategies.

National Highways has a safety vision that “No one should be killed or seriously injured on our network”; the work of the Safety Risk Requirements Team directly supports this vision through the provision of the GG 104 decision making framework.

National Highways has regulatory and legislative responsibilities under the Highways Act, Road Traffic Act and Health and Safety at Work Act and we must be able to demonstrate to our customers, stakeholders and overseeing authorities that we are discharging these responsibilities appropriately.

Developing a consistent approach to management of safety risk is one part of National Highways' development of an enterprise risk management approach. Risk management is the cornerstone of sound health and safety management and the company has a responsibility to all people affected by our undertaking.

For further information or if you have any safety governance queries, please email the Safety Governance Inbox and we will respond as soon as possible.

Additional information

The Step by Step Guide to using GG 104 Requirements for Safety Risk Assessment

This step by step guide is intended to support National Highways staff, supplier or third parties in documenting the SRA process in accordance with the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) Document, GG 104 – Requirements for safety risk assessment. This guide provides advice on the possible structure and content of a compliant document and should be read alongside the requirements in GG 104 and the safety risk governance procedures for the specific business area.

Frequently asked questions about GG 104 Requirements for safety risk assessment

This document provides an overview of questions and answers previously responded to by the safety risk requirements team, about the GG 104 safety risk assessment framework.

Third parties and safety governance management arrangement

The GG 104 arrangements required for external or third party organisations planning works on or next to our Strategic Road Network (SRN).

Third parties whose activities could affect the safety of people using the SRN need to follow this guidance.

Management arrangement of safety risk for National Highways activities

National Highways safety governance for activities that may impact on safety outcomes for the strategic road network.

GG 104 Self Assessment Tool 

This tool provides the user the opportunity to help inform their competency for undertaking work relating to GG 104 requirements for safety risk assessment.