“Assisting Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking “so far as is reasonably practicable” develop a safe place and systems of work that reduces potential liability”.

The Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) creates a personal non-delegable duty of care for those deemed to be duty holders.

Reducing Duty Holder’s Personal Liability

The Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) (Act) imposes personal liability. The Act, amongst other things, specifically prohibits insurance or other indemnities being entered into or offered to those considered as duty holders. Duty holders have a non-delegable duty of care. The Act adopts a qualifying expression “so far as is reasonably practicable” and therefore, the duty of care may be limited to what was reasonably practicable at a moment in time. Understanding and embracing proactivity within the concepts of duty of care is at the heart of reducing personal liability.

Fides provides consultancy services that focuses on an independent review of the organisations internal policies and procedures for compliance in accordance with statutory obligations. Fides provides the following services:

• Gap Analysis i.e – current legislation/s harmonised with the proposed WHS Legislation WA.
• ISO 45001:2018 Internal Audit.
• Development of policy and procedures i.e. – Safety Management Systems.
• Development of internal transitional policies and procedures from OSH to WHS model.

Understanding the organisation specific requirements necessitates undertaking due diligence. The net result of effective due diligence is knowledge, knowledge is the foundation stone to proactivity, proactivity reduces potential liability.

Due Diligence encompasses knowledge of the following six elements:

• 1. Knowledge of WHS matters; and
• 2. Understanding of the nature of the operations of the organisation and the hazards and risk associated with those operations; and
• 3. Resources and processes; and
• 4. Information regarding incidents, hazards and risks and responding in a timely way to that information; and
• 5. Legal compliance; and
• 6. Verifying the provision and use of those resources and processes.

Our informative and interactive seminars are headed up by our subject matter experts.

The presentation is delivered to directors of a PCBU, officers and those deemed to be officers, highlighting the provisions within the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 and Regulations 2022 together with applicable Codes of Practice.

The primary focus is Sections 19 and 27 of the Act in relation to primary duty of care and officer due diligence requirements.

Our seminars can also be tailored to include specific issues of concern to clients in relation to their obligations within the Act and Regulations.

Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) is an industrial safety analysis tool that sorts the findings of an investigation into a structured framework.

ICAM analysis clarifies why the incident happened and identifies all the factors that contributed to the event. The contributing factors are classified into four categories of the ICAM Model which are: absent or failed defences, individual or team actions, task or environmental factors, and organisational factors.

As a compliment to above, Fides adopts 5 Why’s and Swiss Cheese Analysis.

Fides has a strategic alliance with a legal practitioner. Therefore, investigations may be subject to legal professional privilege.

Work health and safety laws impose a proactive duty on officers to exercise due diligence to ensure compliance with those laws. Due diligence is a non-delegable duty imposed on officers personally. It is separate from the duty imposed on their company. The duty is also proactive - it can be breached merely for failing to put in place a corporate governance regime, even though there may not have been a WHS incident at the officer’s company.

Fides provides assistance who may be deemed to be an officer to understand their obligations and how best to meet those objectives under the proposed WHS Act.

A Perception Survey is to uncover the weakness and or strength of the safety culture of the organisation which provides a present and future guide to your safety performance. The survey produces both a quantitative and qualitative data for accuracy and reliability. Fides undertakes the survey as an independent body and collects and interprets the data which is presented to the organisation with recommendations.