With the imminent implementation of the national harmonised occupational safety and health legislation which is scheduled to take effect from 1 January 2012, Workplace Solutions has partnered with the WA Local Government Insurance Services (LGIS) to help raise awareness with our clients of the changes imposed by the new legislation, its impact on organisations and measures that should be proactively implemented in order to ensure compliance.

It is important to note that the existing Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 (WA) and Workplace Health and Safety Act 2009 (NT) will be replaced by the (Nationally harmonised) Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act and subordinate regulations.  There are as yet no transitional provisions for a gradual implementation of the harmonised WHS legislation which means that Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU’s) must consider and implement measures to achieve compliance prior to 1 January 2012 or potentially risk being in breach of the legislation.

Under the proposed Model Work Health & Safety Bill, under the new laws, an “officer of a public authority” is defined as, “A person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole or a substantial part of the business or undertaking of the public authority.” (clause 252 WHS Bill).  With this definition, “officers” includes obvious roles such as CEOs, DCEOs, CFO’s and Directors as well as being likely to encompass the less obvious roles such as works supervisors and team leaders to the extent in which they participate in the decision making process within the business unit.

Under the new legislation, if a PBCU has a duty or obligation under the WHS Act then an officer of the PCBU must exercise due diligence to ensure that the PCBU complies with that duty or obligation. Failure to demonstrate due diligence will in itself be an offence under the WHS Act. Due diligence, as defined in the model WHS Act includes taking reasonable steps to:

a)            Acquire and keep up to date knowledge of work health and safety matters

b)            Gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the PCBU and generally of the hazards and risks associated with those operations

c)            To ensure that the PCBU has available for use, and uses, appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking

d)            To ensure that the PCBU has appropriate processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents, hazards, and risks, and responding in a timely way to that information

e)            Ensure that the PCBU has, and implements, processes for complying with any duty or obligation imposed by the Act

f)             To verify the provision and use of the resources and processes referred to in the Act, Division 4, S27, (5 ‘c’ to ‘e’) (as indicated in the points above)

As officers are required to be able to demonstrate due diligence at all times, not just as a response to an incident, it would be prudent for LGA’s, as PCBU’s, to ensure that officers of the LGA are made fully and formally aware of the due diligence requirements by reviewing and including these in formal position descriptions for each officer role prior to the proposed WHS legislation implementation date of 01 January 2012.

An effective manner of ensuring that due diligence obligations and duties are met by the PCBU could include the assignation of measurable workplace health and safety leading Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to officers position descriptions.

Leading workplace health and safety KPI’s which could be implemented as a proactive method of verifying due diligence activities in an accountable manner include, but are not limited to:

•             Number of Management Safety Observations conducted by officers

•             Percentage of incidents reported within designated timeframes*

•             Percentage of incident investigations and required action items completed within designated timeframe

•             Percentage of safety inspections action items completed within a month compared to safety inspections action items raised

•             Ratio of Injury free (near miss) events reported to injuries incurred (IFE/IFO : injuries)

•             Workgroup participation in Monthly Positive Performance Indicator Focus Quizzes

•             Number of monthly housekeeping inspections conducted by workgroups

•             Number of OSH toolbox meetings conducted by workgroups/ attended by officers

•             Number of OSH committee meetings conducted / attended by officers

Is your organisation prepared for the transition to WHS legislated obligations and duties?

For more information about the implementation of health and safety KPI’s, incident reporting systems or impact of WHS legislation on your business please review the FAQ Section of the Worksafe WA website, NT Worksafe or the LGIS (members) Occupational Safety & Health webpage.

In WA, the following advisers can also be contacted.