Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

Principles of control
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The operations covered may be simple or complex, 
routine or unusual.
Whether the system is verbal or written, and 
whether the operation it covers is simple or complex, 
routine or unusual, the essential features are forethought 
and planning – to ensure that all foreseeable hazards are 
iidentifi ed and controlled. In particular, this will involve 
scrutiny of:
➤
the sequence of operations to be carried out
➤
the equipment, plant, machinery and tools involved
➤
chemicals and other substances to which people 
might be exposed in the course of the work
➤
the people doing the work – their skill and experience
➤
foreseeable hazards (health, safety, environment), 
whether to the people doing the work or to others 
who might be affected by it
➤
practical precautions which, when adopted, will 
eliminate or minimize these hazards
➤
the training needs of those who will manage and 
operate under the procedure
➤
monitoring systems to ensure that the defi ned pre-
cautions are implemented effectively.
6.5.2 Legal 
requirements
The HSW Act Section 2 requires employers to provide 
safe plant and systems of work. In addition, many regu-
lations made under the Act, such as the Provision and 
Use of Equipment Regulations 1998, require information 
and instruction to be provided to employees and others. 
In effect, this is also a more specifi c requirement to pro-
vide safe systems of work. Many of these safe systems, 
information and instructions will need to be in writing.
6.5.3
Assessment of what safe systems of 
work are required
Requirement
It is the responsibility of the management in each organ-
ization to ensure that its operations are assessed to deter-
mine where safe systems of work need to be developed.
This assessment must, at the same time, decide the 
most appropriate form for the safe system, that is:
➤
is a written procedure required?
➤
should the operation only be carried out under per-
mit to work?
➤
is an informal system suffi cient?