• Introduction
• Assessment guidelines
• Review of decision
  • Stage 1 - Compliance with legislation
  • Stage 2 - Audit of management systems
• Determining level of achievement
• Reporting of outcomes
• Contact information

Print-friendly page

Element 5 - Hazard identification evaluation and control

Scope

The capacity of the applicant to systematically identify, evaluate and develop effective treatments for health and safety risk is the fundamental function examined under this element.

The organisation is required to provide evidence (preferably in written form) that:

• in addition to the delegation of the health and safety function to a coordinating position (as discussed at element 3) evidence exists of a system which will identify, evaluate and control hazards in and around the workplace;
• Identification methods include both proactive and reactive strategies;
• Use of planned inspections, hazard reports, job observation and job analysis outcomes are combined with an evaluation of the consequences of previous incidents and accidents and statistics from accident records;
• Having identified the hazards, assessment of any potential risk is based on:
  1. Probability - calculated from previous records and knowledge of the work process, e.g. a falling object risk occurs once per day or week or month;
  2. Frequency - occurrence or exposure of employees by the 'exposure' probability factor, e.g. 10 employees exposed for 1 week or day gives the frequency;
  3. Severity of outcome - an objective evaluation of 'worst case' outcome, e.g. loss of life, permanent disablement, lost time or minor injury;
• Having carried out an assessment as to the extent of any risk posed that appropriate methods of controlling risks are in place.