Work Health and Safety Obligations for Bodies Corporate
Common property is a workplace whenever anyone works on it.
Your body corporate is probably a PCBU
Most committees do not think of themselves as running a workplace. Then a contractor is injured on common property and the question of who held the safety duty gets asked properly for the first time.
Common property is a workplace whenever someone works on it. Cleaners, gardeners, lift technicians, painters, the caretaker. That brings work health and safety duties with it, and those duties sit with the body corporate.
Why this is the biggest exposure most committees carry
Compare it to the other compliance obligations. A late sinking fund forecast is a financial planning problem. A missing pool safety certificate is a penalty. A work health and safety failure that contributes to a serious injury is a different category of consequence entirely, both financially and personally for the people involved.
It is also the obligation committees are least prepared for, because nothing forces an annual reminder the way pool certificates and fire safety do.
What a WHS audit examines
- Hazards across common property, including plant rooms, roofs, plant and equipment
- Working at height risks and the state of any anchor points or fall protection
- Electrical safety and switchboard condition
- Hazardous substances stored on site, and how they are labelled and contained
- Confined spaces, and whether they are identified and controlled
- Contractor management, including whether inductions and safe work method statements are being obtained
- Documentation and record keeping, which is what gets examined after an incident
Anchor points are the recurring problem
Roof anchor points are installed, certified, and then never tested again. Anyone working at height relies on them. A large proportion fail when they are actually tested.
A committee that has never had its anchor points assessed is relying on equipment of unknown condition to keep contractors alive. That is the sort of finding an audit exists to surface.
Contractor management
The duty is not discharged by hiring someone with insurance. A body corporate needs to know that contractors working on common property are competent, inducted, and working to a safe method.
In practice this means asking for documentation and keeping it. Committees that cannot produce contractor records after an incident are in a poor position, regardless of how careful they actually were.
What you receive
A written audit identifying hazards, assessing risk, and recommending controls, in a format a committee can act on and put in front of owners. Where something needs attention urgently, it is flagged as such rather than buried in a list.
Getting the paperwork in order
We also maintain a free library of Queensland and New South Wales codes of practice and safety forms, including hazard report forms, incident reports, job safety analysis and safe work method statement templates. Those are on our resources pages and available to any committee.
Where we work
Across Queensland from the Gold Coast to Cairns, and northern New South Wales as far south as Port Macquarie. Seymour Consultants has been working with bodies corporate since 2001.
Frequently asked questions
Does a purely residential scheme have WHS duties?
If anyone works on common property, and in practice somebody always does, then yes. Residential does not mean exempt.
Does the strata manager carry this obligation for us?
A strata manager administers the scheme. It does not follow that they hold the safety duty for common property. Committees should understand where the duty actually sits rather than assume it has been delegated.
How often should we audit?
Annually is a common cycle, and it should be revisited after significant works, changes to plant, or an incident.
We had an audit and did nothing with it. Are we worse off?
Possibly, because you now have documented knowledge of a hazard. That is uncomfortable to hear, and it is the honest answer. The sensible response is to work through the findings rather than commission a second audit.
Do you cover asbestos as part of this?
Asbestos is assessed separately, since it carries its own register and management plan obligations. We do both.
To arrange a work health and safety audit, call 07 5573 4011 or email info@seymourconsultants.com.au.
