Project Zero

Element 9 Participation and consultation

Safety obligations and responsibilities

Each person in the University holds workplace health and safety obligations and responsibilities. These responsibilities cannot be allocated to others and not to the Workplace Health and Safety Officers or Workplace Health and Safety Representatives. The obligation to provide a safe place of work rests with the managers and supervisors.

Workplace health and safety committees

Safety committees are the primary method of providing an opportunity for consultation and participation. The committees need to be at appropriate levels so all employees are represented and are able to voice their opinions and concerns.

The committee structure at USQ works from the bottom up with all work areas required to form safety committees with groups of workers from their functional areas. These committees report to the faculty or divisional committees and then in turn to the Executive Workplace Health and Safety Committee.

The Executive Workplace Health and Safety Committee reports to the Vice Chancellor through the Senior Leadership Committee.

The following table identifies work areas or business units that are required to form Workplace Health and Safety Committees. This is the minimum standard for the University and other work areas are encouraged to form committees as the need arises.

Work area	Status	Work area	Status
Faculty of Arts	Current	Distance and e-Learning	Not Established
Faculty of Business and Law	Not Established	Learning and Teaching Support Unit	Not Established
Faculty of Education	Not Established	Centre for Australian Indigenous Knowledges	Not Established
Faculty of Engineering and Survey	Current	Student Administration	Not Established
Faculty of Sciences	Current	Student Services	Not Established
Student Guild	Current	The Library	Not Established
Office of Facilities Management	In Progress	Springfield Campus	Not Established
Division of ICT Services	Not Established	Fraser Coast Campus	Not Established
Residential Colleges	Not Established	Queensland College of Wine Tourism (Stanthorpe)	Not Established

Workplace health and safety representatives

The Queensland Workplace Health and Safety Act (1995) requires that employees are able to be represented on the safety committees by an employee elected by their fellow workers. At USQ there are five elected Workplace Health and Safety Representatives (WHSRs) who hold positions on the Executive Workplace Health and Safety Committee. Elections for the WHSRs are held every two years. Guidance on the process for electing and training WHSRs is available from USQSafe.

What should safety committees do?

Safety committees can:

act as a source of expertise and advice;
review the status of incident/hazard reports and the actions taken;
make safety recommendations to address hazards;
review hazard inspections and audit reports;
help identify hazards and defences; and
submit regular reports to the next level of committee.
who should Chair the safety committees?

On the Executive Workplace Health and Safety Committee the chair is appointed by the Vice Chancellor. On all other safety committees the chair should be a senior person appointed by management to represent that manager.

Minutes and agenda

Minutes. The minutes of all meetings should be recorded by a committee member or someone dedicated to the task. The minutes should be provided to each member of the committee as soon as possible after the meeting. Copies of the minutes should be displayed or made available for the personnel working in that area.

Agenda. A member of the committee should be made responsible for drawing up the agenda. Adequate notice is to be given to employees in each area to allow items to be offered for the agenda. A typical agenda some or all of the following items:

review outstanding issues from previous meetings;
review safety action plans;
review accident/incident investigation reports;
review the effectiveness of previous safety recommendations;
notify members of committee activities;
assign hazard inspection schedules;
assess and resolve identified hazards;
review safety audits and hazard inspections;
monitor and promote safety involvement;
carry out risk assessment on any new equipment, routs or procedures;
plan and organise staff training; and
plan for the impact on safety of operational changes.

Meeting frequency

Safety committees should meet as often as required to address the safety issues but not less than every three months.