Paper-based health and safety does not make work (or a workplace) compliant or safe

These include:

• ISO 45001: An international standard for occupational health and safety management systems.
• AS/NZS 4801: An Australian / New Zealand standard for work health and safety management systems.
• SafeWork Accreditation: Specific to certain industries such as construction.
• Federal Safety Commissioner Accreditation: For companies working on Australian Government building and construction projects.
• WorkSafe Certification: State-based certifications such as through WorkSafe Victoria.

Generally, obtaining and maintaining these accreditations requires:

• Implementation of Safety Management Systems: Structured approaches to managing safety risks.
• Regular Audits and Inspections: Ensuring compliance and identifying potential hazards.
• Employee Training and Engagement: Increasing awareness and promoting a safety culture.
• Continuous Improvement: Encouraging ongoing evaluation and enhancement of safety practices.

The way these accreditations are generally obtained and maintained is through paper and desktop audits of the documentation that is rarely a true indication of the way hazards and risks are assessed and controlled.

The requirements of these accreditations treat all risks as equal and do not distinguish between those risks that are critical and those that are non-critical.

Why the misconception on health and safety accreditation?

While the effort required to obtain and maintain a health and safety accreditation demonstrates a commitment to better health and safety outcomes, ultimately it is a demonstration of a paper-based system that often does not reflect what is practically happening on the “coal face” (i.e. work as imagined versus work as done).

The requirements of accreditation are based off the words on the pages within the health and safety management system rather than the ways in which risks, and in particular critical risks, are actually and practically assessed, managed and controlled.

Work health and safety legislation is risk-based and not outcome-based. Put simply, an incident does not automatically equal non-compliance but, without an incident, having incomplete documentation that forms part of a health and safety management system will certainly demonstrate non-compliance.

An example of this is the concept of Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) for high-risk construction work. In theory, and from a regulatory compliance perspective, these documents are a tool for workers to assess and manage risks associated with particular work activities in the context of the specific workplace.

In practice, generic SWMS are provided as part of tender processes that get “signed onto” by workers and never thought about again unless or until there is an incident or it is time for an audit to maintain accreditation. Not having a SWMS will generally be a regulatory breach (provided the workers have considered the risks and put controls in place) but having a generic SWMS that is not a true indication of the way the work was being done is generally a breach of the primary duty of care under the Model Work Health and Safety Act and, in certain circumstances, could lead to breaches and/or prosecutions.

A workplace would ultimately be safer where risks are proactively managed and controlled as part of the way work is done without the burden of an overly bureaucratic paper-based system of documents to be signed or forms to be filled out that relies on work being carried out in the way those sitting in the glass towers imagine.

Part of the problem is that when a regulator calls, it is almost always the case that the first thing they do is demand to see the paper safety system rather than taking the time and effort to understand how hazards and risks are practically managed and controlled.

Regulatory landscape changes in Australia

Organisations need to accept that the regulatory landscape has changed in recent years and accreditation is no longer the health and safety silver bullet it once may have been.

Hand-in-hand with accreditation, organisations can:

• Adopt a less legalistic approach in the system documents and adopt a more outcome / people focused approach that concentrates particularly on critical risks. Adopting a less legalistic, less-is-more approach to the documentation does not reduce overall compliance.
• Make the safety management system less complex while focusing and relying less on documentation, and focusing on the systems and processes that underpin the content of the documents (i.e. work as imagined versus work as done).
• Develop and implement the system in a way that does add unnecessary bureaucracy that ultimately leads to health and safety adding to the workloads of individuals.
• Clarify the connection between physical hazards and psychological hazards, and their associated risks (e.g. acknowledging that a risk arising from a physical hazard may also create psychological risks that also need to be managed).

We are certainly not advocating organisations do away with their accreditations or that accreditations are a wasted endeavour. Instead, organisations should not be lulled into a false sense of security that holding accreditation means their work or workplace are safe or compliant with risk-based health and safety legislation.

John Makris is a partner at Kingston Reid in Sydney. Sarah-Jayne Rayner is a senior associate at Kingston Reid in Brisbane.