Officers, know your duty!

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 imposes a number of due diligence duties on company ‘officers’. We look at how to comply with these new duties

The new Act comes into effect on April 4, and is part of the government’s push to reduce work-related injuries and deaths in New Zealand by at least 25% by 2020.

A big part of the changes includes introducing ‘officers’ into the legislation. Directors and other people who make governance decisions that significantly affect a business are considered officers. They have a duty of due diligence to ensure their business complies with its health and safety obligations.

Jamie Lomas, senior associate at law firm Harkness Henry, says that to meet their responsibilities under the act, officers must:

• Monitor health and safety.
• Understand the business’ operations.
• Ensure appropriate resources and processes to eliminate and / or minimise health and safety risks.
• Receive and consider information regarding incidents, hazards, and risks. Officers should be aware of all incidents, contractors’ health and safety programmes and progress.
• Implement processes for compliance. This may be looking at registration obligations, but includes co-operating with other duty-holders.
• Verify the provision and use of the resources and processes. This ensures that resources and processes are in place and are being used through reviews and audits.

Directors can start preparing for the changes now by reviewing management plans, risk assessments and registers, incident investigations and preparing a health and safety board charter”, says Ms Lomas.

She adds that officers in larger companies may require a sub-committee to regularly monitor health and safety to ensure they meet their duties.

WorkSafe New Zealand senior communications adviser Julian Robins says that directors of smaller construction companies are likely to be well placed to meet their duties already, as they’re often working on site and are directly involved in day-to-day operations.