Uses and Primary Objectives of Safety and Health Audits in Perspective

The terms health and safety auditing and safety inspection are frequently misunderstood misinterpreted and distorted.  The safety audit is not to be confused with an extend inspection of a workplace where safety issues are the focus of the inspection.

The term audit refers to a systematic, objective and documented process during which information is collected and evaluated in order to verify a safety management system's performance. One of the outcomes of an audit should be to assist in ensuring that risks at operating level are reduced to tolerable levels, liabilities are appropriately controlled according to a structured hierarchy of control, legal compliance is achieved, and the safety management systems are correctly implemented. During the audit the appropriateness of the implemented safety management systems will be confirmed through review of documents, field observations, and interviewing employee.

Conducting audits has been synonymous with the financial fraternity for decades, to the extent that popular belief has it that auditing is exclusive to this industry.  In reality auditing has a wide range of application in a large number of industries to achieve different objectives.

The workplace safety audit is deemed to be an independent objective and systematic review of a safety management system, whilst the safety inspection on the other hand is an examination of the actual physical conditions present in the workplace.

It is a tool that can be utilised to evaluate different issues that makes up the safety management system, with the aim of reducing the risk of systems failure and improving employee safety.

The term audit refers to a systematic, documented process to objectively collect and evaluate information in order to verify the performance of a site measured against the set of criteria, normally referred to as the audit protocol.  A good audit protocol is designed to focus on issues that, when confirmed to be in place, will help ensure that risks at operating units are reasonably minimized, liabilities are appropriately controlled, compliance with applicable regulations is achieved, and management systems and controls are in place and functioning properly.  The audit process should verify the existence of management systems that is implemented throughout the company.  This should be verified through employee interviews, review of documents, field observations, and verification testing to ensure that safe working conditions and management systems are in place and functioning as intended.

The basic idea of an occupational safety audit is to help management get an independent view on the effectiveness of their safety management system and associated control measures, and to institute corrective actions in the event of any non-conformances discovered.  It allows managers to take action to correct these non-conformances.

The goal of a safety audit is to identify and, if possible, to improve the functioning of the safety management system to make the workplace a safer and less threatening environment for employees. 

It is a simple but powerful tool.

According to the ISO 19011 guideline an audit can be defined as a Systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled.  This definition forms the basis for the discussion that follows.

The primary objectives that a safety audit should have are to:

1. Assess

During the assessing phase it is implied that the auditor should consider the presence of hazards and risks that could result in negative outcomes if left uncontrolled.  Assessing can consist of evaluating the energy sources present at the site, considering the inherent risks in the type of industry and observations made during physical inspections of the workplaces that makes up the site that is being audited.

2. Confirm

The auditor needs to substantiate that controls are in place to terminate, transfer or tolerate the consequences of risks present in the workplace. Should it be decided to treat the risks to bring the risk down to tolerable levels the auditor should also confirm that an appropriate hierarchy of control was followed to mitigate the risks. 

The most widely used hierarchy of control for health and safety risks is provided by ILO Convention C 176 as follows: 

  a. eliminate the risk;

  b. control the risk at source;

  c. minimise the risk; and

  d. in so far as the risk remains

    i. provide for personal protective equipment; and

ii. institute a programme to monitor the risk to which employees may be exposed.

3. Verify

The auditor should validate compliance with the policy and procedures as well as adherence to risk control measures in so far as the risk profile indicated uncontrolled risks present in the workplace.  During the verification process it is important that the auditor understand the four classes of the truth about the process.  According to Kruithof & Ryall, in their book "The Quality Standards Handbook" these classes of truth can be classified as follows:

  1. The way the current procedure describes the process and how it works.

  2. The way management thinks the process is working

  3. The way the process is meant to be working for maximum productivity and minimum risk.

  4. The way the process is actually implemented and is working.

It is important to realise that none of the classes of the truth is untruths, falsehoods or fibs but a reflection of the perceptions of the various role players.  During the verification process it is the duty of the auditor to discover disconnects between the various classes of truths and highlight differences.  It is not the role of the auditor to decide which of the classes of the truth should be adapted to align with the others but rather to point out the differences.

It is important to state in conclusion that conducting audits is not a way to rectify the inability of management to manage.  The purpose is to ensure that the management team will receive on objective report on deviations and non-conformances form the protocol.  The professional auditor will not provide recommendations, proposals or suggestions to rectify non-conformances identified during the audit.  Providing consulting is prohibited by a clause in ISO 17021, which will/have succeeded ISO Guides 62 and 66 which states that commercial, financial or other pressures may not compromise the impartiality of an auditor.  It is generally accepted that providing recommendations, proposals or suggestions during audits could lead to a contravention of this clause.

© 2009 Carl Marx