Category: guidance

OHS in procurement guideline should be the start and not the end

The Chris Maxwell Report into OHS in Victoria is of historical interest now but one concept in particular from the report continues to echo in OHS and Government circles – government departments and authorities as exemplars of workplace safety.

The latest echo of this concept appeared in a WorkSafe Week seminar in Melbourne on 25 October 2010.  The seminar was to discuss the integration of OHS requirements in the procurement of construction services by government.

Maxwell said that

“…the Government as a whole can promote compliance, by being an exemplar of OHS best practice.  The public sector is a very large employer in Victoria and it should lead the way in OHS.”

and that

“…influence can be exerted by governments on dutyholders by making improved OHS performance a condition of eligibility for them to participate in government contract/tender processes.’

Maxwell’s statement came from the application of the parental question about leading by example, role model, “walking the walk”.  How can one expect contractors to operate safely if the client does not?  How can a parent expect good behaviour from children if good behaviour is not shown by the parent?

That government-as-OHS-exemplar continues to be discussed illustrates that the Maxwell statement must have had a considerable sting for government departments in Victoria. Continue reading “OHS in procurement guideline should be the start and not the end”

Hard copy OHS publications

Printing is expensive and the internet has provided an attractive alternative and low-cost distribution network that particularly suits OHS information.  The precursor to the SafetyAtWorkBlog, the Safety AT WORK magazine, was distributed as a PDF magazine only and online for years.  Publishing online allows for all the printing costs to be outsourced to the subscribers or readers, or at least those who choose to print guidances, alerts, etc.

But it is reasonable to expect that during a national Workplace Safety Week, hard copies of government OHS guidances should be made available to those people who register or attend government-sponsored events, particularly if that event is a (“soft”) launch of a new guidance.

Today I attended a WorkSafe Victoria seminar where a panel of safety experts discussed government OHS requirements as they relate to procurement.  The seminar was also a launch of the new WorkSafe guide Health and safety in construction procurement – A handbook for the public sector No hard copies were available in the seminar for participants.  This raised the odd situation where it was possible to attend a seminar on a new guidance, listen to a WorkSafe representative talk about the guidance, listen to three panelists praise the guide but not have a copy of the guide. Continue reading “Hard copy OHS publications”

Major rethink on Australian Standards needed

A recent download of a “free” guide from the Victorian Building Commission on retrofitting a home for bushfire protection raised the ongoing nonsense of Australian Standards costs.  Sure enough, this free guide is only notionally so; if you don’t hand over $100  then the guide has limited use.

The guide I got, “A guide to retrofit your home for better protection from a bushfire”, is packed with useful info, up to the point you need the nitty-gritty.  Time and time again the reader is sent off to AS 3959 – Construction of buildings in bush-fire prone areas.  Being in OH&S-World we get used to that little double-blind.  Happens all the time with regs and codes and all sorts of guidance stuff.  And it is ridiculous. Its gotta change.

As best as I know a massive cost of development of Australian Standards is born by the participating development organizations.  They are the ones that foot the salary bill to have their staff go off to meetings to formulate the Standards.  Sure, there is going to be lots of other costs, but from what I can see this critical contribution to the development of Australian Standards is a cost to the businesses and government agencies taking part (ultimately a community cost) and the double whammy comes when you want to buy a Standard.

The fact that such an important bit of guidance on protecting homes from bushfire is essentially diminished by the need to spend $100 to get the Standard really slams home the point that change has to happen.

For mine, all PDF downloads of Australian Standards should be free.  A cost recovery cost for a hard copy seems fair enough. I don’t know about the experience of others, but it borders on embarrassing to be giving a punter help on this or that OH&S issue and then have to add “Oh and I think you have no choice but to fork out $XXX for this Standard.”  I hate that, and where I can I avoid it.  But clearly there’s times when it’s impossible.

Perhaps it’s time to get fair dinkum about improved standards of safety, and fair dinkum in way that truly cuts the bullshit?  And that means nationally developed Standards become the nation’s product; PDF copies free to anyone who needs to use ‘em.

Col Finnie
col@finiohs.com

Codes and Regulations prioritized in Australia’s harmonisation process

When the Australian Government began the process of reviewing OHS laws in order to achieve harmonisation, there was a fairly tight schedule for these reforms.  Draft OHS codes of practice and regulations were due in the second half of 2010.  The last public statement on these public comment documents was that drafts were due for release at the end of October.  The latest rumour is that some of the documents will be out around November 10.

It has been mentioned elsewhere that Safe Work Australia has missed a major public relations opportunity by not getting documents ready for release in its Safe Work Australia Week in late October, for it is guaranteed that all State OHS regulators will be badgered about the draft documents as Safe Work Australia Week events.

Codes

SafetyAtWorkBlog has learnt that many of the codes of practice and occupational health issues have been prioritized.  “Priority Codes” will include:

Multiple sources of OHS info are vital for safety lessons

Last week a 48-year-0ld glazier, Darin Johnson, died after he fell 18 metres from an aerial work platform (AWP) in Melbourne Australia.  Johnson’s death attracted more media attention than other workplace fatalities because of where he died.

The Australian newspaper has been running a political campaign against the Labour government over its stimulus package of school facilities construction.  Johnson died on a primary school construction site.

The Australian emphasised the location of the death and chose to emphasise union comments that builders in the school building program cut costs.   Continue reading “Multiple sources of OHS info are vital for safety lessons”

Australia’s Safety Week

The last week of October each year is Safety Week in Australia.  It exists under different names in each State but everyone coordinates events for the same time each year.  Below are some  links for further information, some are more developed than others.

In 2009, I was a Safety Ambassador for Safe Work Australia and found that if one was prepared to give, the rewards were ten-fold.

If you are in Australia I strongly recommend attending one of the many free OHS information events.  If you are outside Australia, regularly check the Australia OHS regulator websites for some innovative approaches to safety and its promotion.

Queensland

Australia

Victoria

Tasmania

Australian Capital Territory (yes, the ACT has a month of activities)

Western Australia

South Australia

Kevin Jones

New UK podcast on drilling regulation

HSE podcasts are almost always worth listening to.  The June 2010 podcast capitalises on the topicality of offshore oil drilling generated by the BP incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

The podcast is available for listening online

The important element of the podcast is whether such deepwater drilling incidents could occur elsewhere?  This is useful not only for the UK jurisdiction but for Europe and Australia.

The interview discusses the value of a “safety case” regulatory regime and the disadvantages of a prescriptive regime.

Interestingly the UK wells are individually notified to HSE almost a month before drilling is due to commence.  This allows for an assessment of the well design and structure prior to activation.

Clearly, this approach stems from the Piper Alpha explosion in 1988.  The BP Gulf incident can be considered the United States’ Piper Alpha.

It raises the question of did BP, an English company that should have been well aware of the usefulness of the safety case approach to drilling, apply a different approach to its Gulf drilling contractors to that applied elsewhere, and why?  Was BP really committed to “best practice” in safety, or as it called it “beyond the best“?

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