Each worksite must have a specific safety rules to safeguard the health and safety of workers and visitors to construction sites.

All workers, subcontractors, suppliers and visitors to the site must abide by the identified site safety rules. A copy of these rules would be given during site induction. Furthermore, the rules must be displayed on notice boards or at other prominent locations on the work site.

The Site safety management plan must detail any site-specific Safety rules that the principal contractor requires persons to comply with and the arrangements for ensuring that all persons at the workplace are informed of these rules. The rules should be simple and clear and, where appropriate, they should show who each rule applies to.

The nature of the work, hazards, size and location of the workplace, and the number and composition of the workers and other persons at the workplace can assist in determining the site-specific rules.

The safety rules would depend of the nature of the works, work environment and requirements of the principal contractor; so the safety rules for bridge works, road works or residential premises works will be different of each other; but the aim would be the same: to safeguard the health and safety of workers and visitor to the construction site

All workers, contractors and visitors to the site must be inducted on the site safety rules; ways of informing people about the safety rules are:

• holding toolbox meetings
• posting them in a prominent position at the workplace
• distributing copies to everyone at the workplace.

If there are people at the workplace who do not understand English well, the principal contractor should look other ways to pass the information of the rules.

In short the rules must be easy to understand and detail sufficient information to ensure they can be followed.

Typical Site-specific Safety Rules

For construction works some of the items to be covered by the rules are (the list is not exhaustive, will depend on the nature of the work and environment):

• Site inductions
• Manual task
• Traffic management
• Mobile plan
• Personal protective equipment
•  Hazardous substances
• Working at heights
• Working around overhead and underground utilities
• Licensing and permits
•  Housekeeping
• Drug and alcohol
• Electrical equipment
• Incident reporting
• Mobile phones
• Other

Sample of safety rules

Click here to see a sample of safety rules

Work Health and Safety (WHS) Management plan

A written WHS management plan prepared before works commence should details the Site-specific Safety Rules.

Regular inspections ensures that effective Health and Safety arrangements are in place for works carried out by the main contractor and its service providers, and that plant, equipment, materials, and workplaces are safe. There are regulatory requirements for inspection, testing and servicing of a range of plant and equipment used on construction sites.

Responsibilities

Project Managers are responsible for ensuring that:

• all required OHS inspections are undertaken;
• appropriate records are kept; and
• an inspection schedule is established; and the Site Supervisor is advised of the schedule so that equipment is available for inspection at the scheduled times.

Project Managers must identify and engage competent persons to undertake inspections. A competent person, as defined in the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 is ‘for any task, a person who has acquired through training, qualification or experience, or a combination of them, the knowledge and skills to carry out that task’.

Competent persons may be contractor’s own staff members or external services providers.

Site Supervisors are responsible for ensuring that:

• only plant and equipment that has been inspected and maintained in a safe condition is used by staff, hired-plant operators and subcontractors.
• any issues or defects found in inspection are acted upon as soon as practicable (timeframes to be based on risk assessment).

Using relevant checklist, inspectors must verify each item for compliance. Any deficiencies found must be recorded as such along with any immediate action taken.

The Site Supervisor reviews and signs off the resulting inspection reports each week and takes appropriate action to address issues. The Site Supervisor raises a Non-conformance Report for any safety deficiency found in inspection.

A schedule of regular inspections, testing and servicing must be developed for each project.

The schedule addresses:

• specified requirements and frequencies of inspections or testings
• the range of known workplace hazards
• the level of risk associated with known hazards
• the likelihood of unforeseen hazards emerging between inspections
• the operating and servicing instructions provided by the designer, manufacturer or supplier of plant and materials
• any regulatory requirements, especially those dealing with the inspection and registration of plant and equipment.

Inspections and tests are based on checklists that are designed to:

• evaluate all of the risk factors known to be present in the workplace
• show whether risk controls are working effectively
• identify new or previously unforeseen risks.

What to test or inspect on each construction project

The following items must be incorporated in the schedule of inspection and testing for construction projects:

• Materials received on site
• Workplace health and safety inspections (visual)
• Plant and trucks
• Electrical equipment
• Lifting gear
• Fire protection equipment
• Fall arrest systems and devices
• Portable ladders
• Scaffolding
• Welding equipment
• First aid kits
• Personal protective equipment
• Emergency response equipment
• And any other plant or equipment not listed above

In summary on each construction site conducting scheduled inspections and testing ensures that the workplace is safe for workers, contractors and visitors to the construction site.

The Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulations stipulate that all participants conducting a business (such as a construction business) or an undertaking shall ensure (as reasonably practical) that workers and other persons are not put at risk from the work carried out by the business and the undertaking. This means the elimination and minimisation of risks to health and safety as practical as possible.

Besides the above, according to the WHS Act 2011, any construction business (or any business) has specific responsibilities such as:

• Establishing, implementing, maintaining and recording an effective work health and safety management system (WHSMS)
• Identifying all hazards and potential risks and take reasonably practical or appropriate measures to minimise or eliminating such risks or hazards
• Identifying all major constructions hazards, assess the severity of the risk and develop management control plans for such major hazards
• Preparing an emergency plan or emergency preparedness plan and use it when there is an emergency.

In addition to the above, the WHS Act implies that sound monitoring and measurement procedures must be in place in any business (or construction business for that matter) to measure the performance of WHSMS. This is essential to evaluate whether:

• The risk or hazard control measures are effective or need revision
• The objective and targets under WHSMS are realised
• Continual implementation of WHSMS
• Conformity with WHS regulations

The above shows that any business (or construction business) engaged in hazardous work not only has to prepare an effective WHMS but also ensure that the WHMS is really active at all times rather than confining it to a mere document. Hence, continual improvement is a norm which requires reviews, audits, incident investigation and reporting, and corrective actions. More importantly, the WHS Act says that top management shall be directly responsible for the WHSMS in any business.

Incident Investigation and Preventive Action

According to the WHS Act 2011, any business including top management is legally required to notify any incident (injury, illness or fatal incident) related to workplace health and safety. Therefore, any construction business should know how to comply with this mandatory requirement. The following procedure will explain how, when, why and what to report:

What type of incident to be reported to WHS?

The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 clearly indicate that any accident (resulting from operating a business or undertaking) leading to a death, serious injury or serious illness of a person or embraces a dangerous incident (or near misses) should be notified to WHS.

When and how to assess an injury or illness is serious?

The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 define the serious injury or illness of a person. For example, serious injury or illness can be:

• If the injured or seriously ill person needs immediate treatment as an in-patient in a hospital;
• If the injured person needs immediate treatment for amputation of a body part, serious head injury, serious eye injury, serious burns, separation of skin (scalping), loss of bodily movements, serious cuts or lacerations;
• If medical care taken within 48 hours of exposure to a hazardous substance or any infections or exposure to contagious substances when carrying out work and any exposure to any other hazardous materials or diseases.

What is a dangerous incident?

According to WHS Act, a dangerous incident is defined as an event (related to work place) that exposes a worker or any other person to a severe risk to his/her health and safety. In other words, the following exposures are considered to be dangerous incidents according to WHS ACT 2011:

• Exposure to uncontrollable leakage, spillage or escape of hazardous substance;
• Exposure to uncontrollable explosion or collapse or fire;
• Exposure to uncontrollable emission of gas or steam;
• Exposure to uncontrollable leakage of a pressurised substance;
• Exposure to electric shock;
• Exposure to any fall of substance or any object from a height of any plant;
• Exposure to any collapse, toppling, failure or malfunction of, or damage to, any plant which requires approval from the authorised persons stipulated in the WHS Act;
• Exposure to failure or partial collapse of a structure;
• Exposure to subsidence or failure of an excavation or of any shoring supporting an excavation;
• Exposure to sudden flooding or inrush of water, mud, debris or harmful gas leaks when working in an underground or deep excavation or tunnel;
• Sudden failure or interruption of the main ventilation system in a tunnel or in an underground or deep excavation;

Who has to notify?

According to the WHS Act 2011, top management (PCBU) who are responsible for the business (or construction business) or undertaking are required to notify immediately when a notifiable incident has occurred owing to his/her business.

How to notify?

Notification must be made through the best possible means available such as over the telephone or completing and submitting an online incident notification form or faxing the completed incident notification form or forwarding a PDF copy of the same form via email. Furthermore, all businesses should be aware of the arrangements made by WHS to report such incidents outside of business working hours.

Is it possible to continue the work where the incident occurred?

According to the WHS Act, the work place where (the site) the notifiable incident occurred has to be kept undisturbed as practical as possible until an inspector arrives. It is the responsibility of the person who has management control at the said work place or site. Also, it is important to note the site or work place should include plant, structure and any substances or other that were involved in the notifiable incident.

The extreme situations or reasons that allow disturbing an incident site are:

• To help an injured person
• To take away a deceased person
• To make the site safe or to minimise the risk of triggering further notifiable incidents
• Something that is associated with a police investigation
• When an inspector or WHS has given special permission or a direction to disturb the notifiable incident;

Is it necessary to maintain a record of the incident?

According to the WHS Act 2011, the person or persons operating a business or an undertaking shall keep a record of each notifiable incident. Also, it is mandatory to retain such records for a minimum of five year (5) from the date of notification to WHS.

If you’ve got questions about anything in this article or anything related to Ensafe or the construction industry, you can contact us via phone or email or leave your question in the comments below.

The OHS legislation and regulation in all Australian states and territories imposes considerable responsibility and accountability on all those engaged in construction activities. The OHS Management Systems of an organisation address all those responsibilities.

The OHS Management System is a four tier system:

• Corporate OHS Management system (OHSMS): A corporate OHSMS document describes OHS policies and procedures covering all the activities of the organization.. The OHSMS also defines responsibilities for the management OHS.
• Project OHS Management Plan (PSMP): A project OHS Management Plan is a document setting out the specific OHS resources, responsibilities, procedures and practices for a particular project
• Site-specific Safety Management Plan (SSMP): A Site-specific Safety Management Plan is a document that identifies who is responsible for site-specific OHS aspects. The plan also identifies the OHS hazards associated with the work, risk management processes to deal with them, site induction training, incident management, site safety rules and safe work method statements.
• Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS): A Safe Work Method Statement is a document that identifies the safety controls that will be put in place to control and minimize the health and safety hazards and risks associated with a specific activity, job or task.

OHS Management Systems For Construction Projects

Major construction contracts are normally required to have the PSMP (that includes SSMP and SWMS) and must be written around the organisation’s OHSMS.

Minor construction contracts are normally required to have a SSMP and the SSMP must be written around the organisation’ OHSMS. Small organisations may not have the OHSMS documented, so it is quite acceptable to have the SSMP enhanced to include the requirements of OHSMS.

When it comes to OHS Management Systems, principal contractors must ensure that a PSMP or SSMP is prepared for each place of work before the work commences and the plan is maintained and kept up to date through the duration of the project.

The principal contractor must ensure that copies of any parts of the PSMP or SSMP that are relevant to a subcontractor are provided to the sub-contractor before the sub-contractor commences work at the place of work concerned.

It is a common practice that subcontractors may be required to have their own SSMP, but it is most important that the subcontractor must not commence work on site unless it:

• has been provided by the principal contractor for the construction works with a copy of the parts that the PSMP for the place of work that are relevant to the subcontractor and,
• has undertaken an assessment of the risks associated with the work to be carried out and provided to the principal contractor a written SWMS and,
• has completed induction training with respect to OHS as specified in the PSMP for the place of work.

A well structured SSMP is the only document you need in most cases to deliver construction works; implementing the SSMP will help you to reduce work-related injuries, increase productivity and at the same time you will be complying with OHS regulations.

So, if you are required to have OHS Management Systems it may mean you need a PSMP, SSMP or maybe just a SWMS.

One of the most sought-after documents these days among employers and business owners is a Safety Plan Template. There’s no better and easier way to come up with your very own safety plan than by having one already written up and structured for you, and all you have to do is to fill in some gaps with your information. However, with many people offering so called “templates” in the marketplace, you have to be careful and vigilant as to which one you choose.

New Federal OHS Legislation In 2012

In case you weren’t aware, the Work Health & Safety Act will come into force from January 1, 2012. This is the first time that there will be 1 single uniform OHS legislation for the whole country. Previously, all states and territories had separate OHS legislation.

There weren’t major differences between all of them, however, it was the smaller differences which caused headaches and it was only logical and a matter of time before the Federal Government stepped in to make Workplace Safety legislation uniform across the nation.

As a result of this new legislation, it is imperative that your safety plans comply with the new law.

Download A Fully Compliant Safety Plan Template

Ensafe has created 2 fully compliant safety plan templates to help employers and business owners comply across the country. There’s one for construction activities and one for non-construction activities.

Ensafe has looked at the new 2012 legislation and has made the templates fully compliant with it. Kind in mind that any template needs to be customised to your workplace or worksite, and in order to facilitate this, Ensafe has made it easy by creating an easy structure and adding instructions throughout the templates.

Furthermore, each template comes with 12 months of free updates which means that if the new legislation were to change, you will get an updated version of the template so that you always remain compliant.

Click on the relevant links below to access each one. You can also download a sample of each template.

Safety Plan Template For Construction Activities – GET ACCESS HERE
Safety Plan Template For Non-Construction Activities – COMING SOON

If you have any questions about the above templates, get in contact with Ensafe by sending an email to support@ensafe.com.au or by calling 1300 729 881.

Plan To Be Safe

There’s a common saying that goes: “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” The same applies to safety in the workplace. Avoid the dire consequences of non compliance in 2012 by using your very own Safety Plan Template.