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Health & Safety for Directors

With the new Health and Safety law about to come into effect it is important to understand how the changes affect Directors and Partners in a Business.  Below is a key summary of the changes and the important definitions that will impact Boards of Directors and business owners.

Health and Safety for Directors Consulting Services

If you are currently the Director of more than one company your risk is multiplied for each directorship.  If you are unaware of the new legislation and how it impacts your risk, why not contact us to determine if your risk exposure is a valid concern.

Key Definitions:

PCBU – Person Conduction Business or Undertaking
  • A PCBU is governed by individuals (officers) who, through their decision making, influence the specific activities that will in turn ensure the success or failure of health and safety initiatives and whether the PCBU is complying with its own duty,
Officer
  • Any person occupying the position of a director of a company
  • Any partner of a partnership
  • Any person occupying a position that is comparable with that of a director of a company
  • Any other person who makes decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the business (Regional GM for a non resident multinational Company)
The new Act requires that Officers must exercise due diligence to ensure that the PCBU complies with it duties.
  • Officers will be held personally liable for an organizations failure to comply with the HSAW Act if they are held to have, directed, authorized, assented to, acquiesced in, or participated in, a failure to comply.
Failure for an officer to meet their obligations under the new HSAW Act can result in
  • $600,000 Fine (This can not be insured against)
  • 5 Years Prison

New Roles and Responsibilities of Company Directors

Places a positive duty on people at a governance level of an organization to actively engage in health and safety matters, reinforcing that health and safety is everyone’s responsibility.

  • Officers versus PCBU – What is the difference in duty?
  • The officers duty is not the same as the PCBU duty.  Officers do not have to ensure the health and safety of the PCBU’s workers.  Rather the officer must exercise due diligence to ensure that the PCBU is meeting its health and safety obligations.  The due diligence duty complements and supports the primary duty of care of the PCBU – it does not replace it.

 

The HSAW Act requires officers to take reasonable steps to
  • Acquire and update their knowledge of health and safety matters
  • Understand the operations being carried out by the person conducting the business or undertaking in which they are employed, and the hazards and risks associated with the operations
  • Ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has and uses appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimize health and safety risk arising from work being done
  • Ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has appropriate processes in place to receive and respond promptly to information regarding incidents, hazards and risks
  • Ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has, and uses, processes for complying with the duties or obligations under the HSAW act.

Kiwi Logic Consulting – Due Diligence Services

Training
  • A one hour training presentation for the officers of the organization outlining the key changes in Health and Safety legislation and how they will impact the activities and the liability of the board of directors.
Initial Compliance Screen – What is the current state of the due diligence duty

Risk

  • Does the organization meet the HSAW expectations for the officers due diligence duty?

Mitigation 

  • A one day initial screen to accurately identify director risk under the proposed HSAW Act legislation.  This will produce a board level report identifying current board H&S due diligence performance, gap analysis and directors exposure in the current state of your business.
Compliance – Are the officers of the company meeting their compliance obligations?

Risk

  • Are all aspects of the HSAW Act being meet and is there a program for continual review and progression to best in practice?

Mitigation

  • Annual External Audit of H&S systems and procedures

  • Annual External Culture survey to determine a H&S benchmark for developing future progressive targets
Verification – Is the information being provided to the officers of the company true and correct?

Risk

  • Are the activities being carried out, are we receiving truthful, timely information? Reliance on reporting accuracy is not sufficient

Mitigation

  •  Annual External Audit of information presented to the officers of the business
Due Diligence Process Build – Do you have the processes to record the due diligence duty requirements?
Risk
  • Do you have the traceability to demonstrate the directors due diligence duty?
Mitigation
  • The creation of the systems, reports and records to clearly demonstrate how you are meeting the HSAW Act due diligence duty

If you are currently the Director of more than one company your risk is multiplied for each directorship.  If you are unaware of the new legislation and how it impacts your risk, why not contact us to determine if your risk exposure is a valid concern.