Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

International aspects of health and safety
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Where the organization is spread over a number of sep-
arate sites, the management arrangements linking the 
centre with these sites should be examined by the audit.
Some elements of the occupational health and 
safety management system do not need to be audited 
as often as others. For example, an audit to verify the 
implementation of critical risk control systems should be 
made more frequently than an audit of the management 
arrangements for health and safety of the whole organ-
ization. Where there are complex workplace precautions 
in place, such as in the chemical industry, it may also be 
necessary to undertake technical audits.
The audit programme should produce a comprehen-
sive picture of the effectiveness of the health and safety 
management system in controlling risks. The programme 
must indicate when and how each component part will 
be audited. The audit team should include managers, 
safety representatives and employees. Such inclusive-
ness will help during the implementation of any audit 
recommendations.
More detailed information on the auditing process is 
given in Chapter 7.
When planning an audit, a decision has to be made 
as to whether to use internal or external auditors. When 
formal certifi cation is required either by the organization 
or the client, competent external auditors are essential. 
However, it is likely that in such cases, internal auditors 
will also be used.
The advantage of using internal auditors is that they 
know the critical areas to monitor and will help to spread 
good practices around the organization. The disadvan-
tages are that clients may question their independence 
and they may well be unaware of external benchmarks. 
These two disadvantages are the advantages of using 
external auditors. External auditors have the disadvan-
tages that they do not know the organization, require 
much more documentation and can offer bland reports. 
It is also usually more expensive to use external rather 
than internal auditors. Auditor competence is an 
important issue and it is important that any auditors 
used, whether internal or external, are properly trained.