Rethinking contractor safety management: changing perspective

Contractor safety management is a critical function for many organisations. There has been a discernible shift in contractor management in recent years, with a more collaborative approach between organisations and contractors at all levels of work and down through supply chains being adopted.

There have also been some significant shifts in the legislation and regulation of safety and governance priorities through supply chains (incorporating contractor relationships), which have clarified the relationship between contractors and those who hire them. However, this clarification does not seems to have had the desired impact on processes designed and implemented to manage contractor safety.

Often activities undertaken in the name of contractor safety management are focused on managing safety on behalf of contractors, which is looking in the wrong direction. The result of this is that almost all our time is spent starting obsessively at contractor safety management systems as opposed to our own.

For principal contractors, the inclusion of contractors as workers under safety legislation creates a primary duty of care to ensure the safety of contractors, and a secondary duty to ensure a contractor is working safely so as to not harm workers and others at the workplace. It does not create a duty to manage safety on behalf of a contractors in respect of the contractor’s own work or workers. The duty is also limited by reasonable practicability, with the High Court finding that it is not reasonably practicable, due to issues of knowledge, suitability, and cost, for a principal contractor to direct or supervise contractors in their method of work.

The general interpretation of this duty to contractors is that it creates a duty of the principal contractor to ensure that contractors’ methods of work are safe in a general sense, including approving and even directing them in their work and then supervising that they are working safely.

This results in contractor safety management systems that are almost extensively designed to focus on how contractors are managing safety, whereas the focus should be primarily on ensuring a principal contractor does not pose a risk to contractors working in their workplace. As a result of this mistaken focus, most orgainsations fare pretty poorly when it comes to contractor safety management and are often implementing complex systems that do very little to improve safety.

There has been a shift over the past decade towards the recognition of the independence of contractors in managing their own safety. There has also been a significant amount of focus placed on strengthening partnerships between organisations and contractors, resulting in greater cooperation and discussion about safety and its management by both contractors and principal contractors.

Reproduced from OHS Professional | June 2024