How to Chair an Effective Health & Safety Committee Meeting

Many workplaces in NSW have a Health & Safety Committee (HSC) either as a permanent body or established as needed to address particular WHS issues or projects that may arise.

An HSC is made up of personnel who meet as representatives of the business, and as representatives of the workforce. In workplaces that have work groups established for the purpose of WHS consultation, their health and safety representatives are automatically members of the HSC. (HSRs must relay important information from management to the members of their work groups as well as relay feedback, contributions, and proposals from the members of their work groups back to management.)

This article was written specifically for the consideration of the chairperson of a Health & Safety Committee.

Successful committee meetings that run smoothly

A WHS committee chairperson’s ability to be effective is dependent on their clear understanding, respect for, and adherence to the functions and expectations belonging to a health and safety committee as prescribed in the WHS Act. The chairperson needs to keep the meeting on track, on purpose, and on topic. The committee is not there to do the job of management. Business owners and directors have WHS duties that are non-delegable [See Note 1]. The HSC is a means for management to communicate to the workforce and work together on WHS initiatives in order to improve and maintain health and safety standards at work.

The HSC chairperson must be able to distinguish between tasks given to the committee that support management’s efforts to instigate, develop, and implement measures to ensure the health and safety of workers, and any attempt to improperly shift management’s WHS responsibilities onto the committee. An HSC is not a management body. It serves as a forum for consultation on WHS matters and serves as an additional resource for the business to carry out its WHS legal duties.

The basic actions listed below are the actions that HSC chairpersons in general have found to be valuable in helping them to successfully deal with items on the committee meeting agenda. You may care to look them over to see if there are any actions in the list that you would find useful in your WHS committee meetings.

• Prepare and circulate a draft agenda before the meeting so that members can prepare themselves to discuss what is on the agenda.

• At the start of the meeting get the Committee to agree on the draft agenda - review, revise and reorder sequence of items on the agenda if necessary.

• During the meeting ensure that the agreed agenda is followed in an orderly manner.

• Give HSC members equal opportunity to put forward their point of views and contributions about each item on the agenda.

• Clarify members’ views and the facts they rely upon when necessary.

• Very accuracy of information by taking into account evidence and proof supplied.

• Ensure the Committee focuses on progressing and resolving each agenda item and does not get sidetracked into matters that are not any of the functions of a health and safety committee (ref Section 77 of the WHS Act.)

• Ensure the Committee arrives at clear recommendations for each agenda item covering proposals for what should be done, who should do it and by when.

For further information on solutions to common problems that an HSC may encounter please read: Running effective HSCs - Solutions to common problems (courtenell.com.au)

Note 1. Non-delegable duties are legal obligations that cannot be transferred to another party. Even if the task is delegated, the original party remains responsible for ensuring it is performed correctly. This concept is often used to impose liability on one person for the negligence of another to whom they have entrusted a task. Under the WHS legal framework, specific duties imposed on officers of a PCBU are non-delegable duties and cannot be transferred or subcontracted out as per Sections 14 and 272 of the WHS Act 2011.

For more information, or if you would like help to make your WHS management system even more robust, please feel free to contact us at train@courtenell.com.au or phone us on 02 9552 2066

Published: 26 April, 2017