Elements and Performance Criteria

This competency is to be exhibited in accordance with all relevant occupational health and safety legislation, particularly:
State/Territory/Commonwealth occupational health and safety Acts, regulations and codes of practice, including regulations and codes of practice relating to hazards present in the workplace or industry; general duty of care under occupational health and safety legislation and common law; requirements for the maintenance and confidentiality of occupational injury and disease; requirements for provision of occupational health and safety information and training; provisions relating to health and safety representatives and/or occupational health and safety committees; provisions relating to occupational health and safety issue resolution.

Establish and maintain the framework for occupational health and safety may include:
Policy development and updating; determining the ways in which occupational health and safety functions will be managed. This may include distinct occupational health and safety management activities, or inclusion of occupational health and safety functions within a range of management functions and operations such as: maintenance of plant and equipment; purchasing of materials and equipment; designing operations, work flow and materials handling; planning or implementing alterations to site, plant, operations or work systems; mechanisms for review and allocation of human, technical and financial resources needed to manage occupational health and safety, including defining and allocating occupational health and safety responsibilities for all relevant positions; mechanisms for keeping up to date with relevant information and updating the management arrangements for occupational health and safety, for example, information on health effects of hazards, technical developments in risk control and environmental monitoring and changes to legislation; mechanisms to assess and update occupational health and safety arrangements relevant to legislative requirements; a system for communicating occupational health and safety information to employees, supervisors and managers within the enterprise.

Establish and maintain participative arrangements for management of occupational health and safety may cover:
Occupational health and safety committees and other committees, for example, consultative, planning and purchasing; health and safety representatives; employee and supervisor involvement in occupational health and safety management activities, for example, occupational health and safety inspections, audits, environmental monitoring, risk assessment and risk control; procedures for reporting hazards, risks and occupational health and safety issues by managers and employees; inclusion of occupational health and safety in consultative or other meetings and processes.

Establish and maintain procedures for identifying hazards may include developing and updating procedures for:
Workplace inspections, including plant and equipment; audits; maintaining and analysing occupational health and safety records, including environmental monitoring and health surveillance reports; maintenance of plant and equipment; reviews of materials and equipment purchases, including manufacturers and suppliers information; employee reporting of occupational health and safety issues.

Establish and maintain procedures for assessing risks may include developing and updating procedures for:
Determining the likelihood and severity of adverse consequences form hazards; occupational health and safety audits; workplace inspections; maintenance of plant and equipment; purchasing of materials and equipment; planning or implementing alterations to site, operations or work systems; analysis of relevant records and reports, for example, injuries and incidents, hazardous substances inventories/registers, audit and environmental monitoring reports and occupational health and safety committee records.

Establish and maintain procedures for controlling risks may include developing and updating procedures for:
Assessing the occupational health and safety consequences of materials, plant or equipment prior to purchase; obtaining expert advice; appropriate application of measures according to the hierarchy of control, namely: elimination of the risk; engineering controls; administrative controls; personal protective equipment; designing safe operations and systems of work; inclusion of new occupational health and safety information into procedures; checking enterprise compliance with regulatory requirements.

Establish and maintain organisational procedures for hazardous events may include developing and updating procedures for:
Making inventories of, and inspecting, high risk operations; inspecting systems and operations associated with potentially hazardous events, for example, emergency communications, links to emergency services, fire fighting, chemical spill containment, bomb alerts and first aid services.

Establish and maintain an occupational health and safety training program may include
Arrangements for ongoing assessment of training needs, for example, relating to supervisors and managers; specific hazards; specific tasks or equipment; emergencies and evacuations; training required under occupational health and safety legislation; allocation of resources for occupational health and safety training, including acquisition of training resources, development of staff training skills and purchase of training services; induction training; training for new operations, materials or equipment.

Establish and maintain a system for occupational health and safety records may cover:
Identifying records required under occupational health and safety legislation, for example worker's compensation and rehabilitation records; hazardous substances registers; Material Safety Data Sheets; major accident/injury notifications; certificates or licences; manufacturers and suppliers occupational health and safety information; occupational health and safety audits and inspection reports; maintenance and testing reports; workplace environmental monitoring and health surveillance records; records of instruction and training; and first aid/medical post records.

Evaluating the organisation's health and safety system may include arrangements for
Reviewing the effectiveness of the occupational health and safety management system; regular review of operating procedures; regular analysis of occupational health and safety records; audits against occupational health and safety legislative requirements.

Critical aspects of evidence
Competence may be demonstrated working individually or under the guidance of, or as a member of, a team with specialist occupational health and safety staff, managers or consultants
Evidence is required of detailed knowledge of all relevant occupational health and safety Acts, regulations and codes of practice and how they will be implemented within the area of managerial responsibility
Understanding of the principles and practice of effective occupational health and safety, including the significance of organisational management systems and procedures for occupational health and safety, and an ability to establish and maintain appropriate arrangements for occupational health and safety within those systems and procedures
Ability to establish and/or maintain the organisation's occupational health and safety management system
Detailed understanding of how the characteristics of the workforce impact on the design and maintenance of occupational health and safety management systems, and an ability to apply that understanding
Ability to identify when expert advice is needed, to obtain that advice and to act on it appropriately

Interdependent assessment of units
Pre-requisite units: Nil
Co-requisite units: Nil
Co-assessed units: Competency in this unit underpins competency in other aspects of the workplace role of employees with managerial responsibilities. It may be appropriate to assess parts of this unit in conjunction with units relating to the performance of such aspects of the role. For example, assessment of a unit relating to managing an operational area could involve assessing that the person is able to assess the effectiveness of risk control measures in place for that operation or area.

Underpinning knowledge
provisions of relevant occupational health and safety legislation
principles and practice of effective occupational health and safety management
management arrangements relating to regulatory compliance
enterprise hazards and risks, control measures and relevant expertise required
characteristics and composition of workforce and their impact on occupational health and safety management
relevance of enterprise management systems to occupational health and safety management

Underpinning skills
ability to analyse working environment and design appropriate occupational health and safety management systems
ability to analyse relevant data and evaluate occupational health and safety system effectiveness
ability to assess resources to establish and maintain occupational health and safety management systems

Resource implications
assessment of this unit requires access to relevant occupational health and safety Acts, regulations and codes of practice
information relevant to the management of the enterprise, for example, planning, operations, maintenance, purchasing and budgeting
enterprise occupational health and safety management information, including policies and procedures
work areas in the area of managerial responsibility

Method of assessment
To ensure that the contingency management component (ability to deal with irregularities and breakdowns) of competency is adequately assessed, evidence needs to be gathered across a range of occupational health and safety management systems, operations and workplace circumstances. This could be either in an actual workplace or in a simulation of realistic workplace conditions
Techniques for assessment could include observation; simulation; case studies; interviews; written tests; workplace projects

Context/s of assessment
This unit should be assessed by a combination of workplace (or a realistic simulation) and off-the-job assessment. The context of assessment should ensure that evidence relating to the contingency management component (ability to deal with irregularities and breakdowns) of competency can be collected. Evidence must include observation in the workplace as well as off-the-job techniques such as interviews and simulations. Conditions for simulations should: accurately simulate the range of operations and circumstances that managers or owners could be expected to manage in the workplace; allow for discussion; ensure the relevant information and documents are available in particular, evidence of ability to manage a range of emergencies and hazardous events may be gathered through simulations; the assessor should have recognised expertise in managing occupational health and safety in the industry or work in an assessment team with such a person.