Proposed principal's guide to contracting to meet the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992

Download the guide [pdf 1.8MB, 71 pages]

The Department of Labour would like your feedback on draft guidance it has prepared to help principals to contracts to meet their obligations under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

Contractor safety is a major and increasingly important issue for many workplaces. The recent Quality Regulation Review led by the Minister of Commerce highlighted business concerns over liability for the actions of contractors. This guide has been prepared in response to these and other concerns. It is to help businesses meet their duties under section 18 of the Health and Safety in Employment (HSE) Act 1992, and encourage greater consideration of health and safety.

There is an enormous range and diversity of contracted activities, and well-managed contracts benefit all. Such benefits include:

• reduced risk of accidents and ill health
• greater satisfaction for both contractors and clients
• fewer incidents, losses, problems, stoppages and delays
• less management time required to deal with problems
• continuous improvement in practices
• and financial savings.

Companies with effective health and safety systems are also more likely to deliver customers high quality goods and services.

There is also an imperative beyond the potential benefits to businesses, as injury and fatality rates are too high in several industries with high levels of contracting. These include the agriculture, forestry, public utility, and construction industries. Contractual organisation of worksites has long been recognised as an underlying contributor to accident rates in each of these sectors.

The courts have found that health and safety obligations are fundamental to the relationship between principal and contractor. This guide provides various examples from the case law. It also provides a "good practice" framework, for principals to meet their duties for contractor safety.

This draft guidance sets out a broad process for building health and safety into contract management, which can then be adapted to specific contractual situations or industries. Not all steps of the process will be applicable to all contracts, but principals to contracts can refer to the framework when drawing up their own "best practice" approach to safety and health.

The Department of Labour encourages sector groups and businesses to review the relevance and content of this draft guidance, and to consider ways that it might be applied to their business practices. We welcome your comments and suggestions for inclusion before the guidance is published in a final form.

After consultation and review the department plans to use the document as a lead in for sector groups to develop their own industry-specific materials on good contracting practice to meet the HSE Act.  We will also be developing briefer versions for particular audiences, such as the construction, service and other sectors, and for SMEs.

YOUR RESPONSE INVITED

We want to hear what you think about the approach taken in the guidance and its relevance and usefulness to your workplace or sector.

Please send your comments by 30 September 2008 to:

Bob White
Senior Policy Analyst
Workplace Policy Group
Department of Labour
PO Box 3705
Wellington

or by email

 

---