Throughout 2011, Safe Work Australia (SWA) has been conducting consultative workshops in the development of the next ten-year National OHS Strategy. SafetyAtWorkBlog reported previously on the Melbourne meeting. SWA has released their report into that Melbourne meeting.
The meeting had a set of criteria for the stakeholders to consider. Sadly, there was no forewarning of the issues to be discussed so the workshop took some time to gain traction. With only one day of consultation, it would have been more productive to release the agenda topics a day or two earlier. These topics, each of which could have generated at least a half-day’s debate, are listed below
“Social/Economic/Emerging Issues in the Workforce, Business and Technology…
Hazards – Enhancing the capacity of workplaces to respond to:
- Disease-Causing Hazards …
- Injury-Causing Hazards …
- Psychological Injury-Causing Hazards …
Work Health and Safety Systems – Challenges and Solutions in Safe Design and Work Systems, Skills and Training, and in Safety Leadership and Organisational Culture…..”
The report has responses to each of these topics but many of the suggestions are already known. The lack of creativity in the suggestions is largely disappointing. The responses to “what will success looks like in ten years” are mostly extensions of programs that are already in place or a perpetuation of the “way things are done now”. Innovation was largely missing, perhaps due to the participants not being able to lose their own agendas. The earlier SafetyAtWorkBlog article discussed the negative impact of the shadow of harmonisation, a term found only once in SWA’s report. Continue reading “OHS Strategy to nowhere”