National Action Agenda 2010–2013
Previous Section | Table of Contents | Next Section
The Action Agenda
This Action Agenda identifies a discrete set of national-level actions that will be delivered progressively over the next three years and will demonstrate the Government's commitment to improving health and safety in New Zealand workplaces.
The actions will be delivered under the four action areas:
- Growing safety leadership
- Developing capability
- Building knowledge
- Supporting a robust health and safety system.
The Action Agenda signals a narrower and deeper focus by concentrating on priority sectors and setting specific actions that will result in harm reduction. The Action Agenda is focusing on areas where a marked and measurable difference can be made over the next three years.
The five priority sectors are:
- Construction
- Agriculture
- Forestry
- Manufacturing
- Fishing.
The Action Agenda will ensure government agencies prioritise their work programmes to focus on these five sectors. These sectors have the highest risks of ill health, injury or death. Within each of the five sectors, stakeholders will be encouraged to work together, concentrating their combined skills and resources on fewer priorities.
Each of the five sectors will have an individual three-year Sector Action Plan. These plans are intended to provide a rallying point for all key players to:
- build shared leadership and ownership of the problems and solutions
- agree on key priorities for action
- coordinate and integrate activity.
Each Sector Action Plan will be developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders in New Zealand's health and safety system, in the priority sectors. The Department of Labour will lead the development of the construction, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing Sector Action Plans. Maritime New Zealand will lead the development of the fishing Sector Action Plan.
The success of this Action Agenda depends on each sector 'owning' their Sector Action Plan. Government agencies will do all they can to support and encourage engagement and action.
Developing closer working partnerships
A major focus of the Action Agenda over the next three years will be to develop effective partnerships in the priority sectors. Over recent years, a number of committed health and safety stakeholder groups have shown that they want to be more effectively engaged.
The needs and influence of the groups listed below will be addressed by the Action Agenda's activities over the next three years:
- Small businesses face challenges in accessing health and safety information and advice, as well as ensuring appropriate, tailored and targeted tools and guidance is available to them. They also make a large and unique contribution to the New Zealand economy and their communities.
- Workers must be encouraged and supported to actively participate in health and safety in their workplaces. Engaging both employers and employees on worker participation and raising awareness that leadership can come from all levels will be an ongoing focus.
- Business leaders have the ability to influence and champion positive safety cultures within their firms and across their supply chains. The emerging Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum demonstrates this potential.
- Sector health and safety leadership groups are being established in some of the priority sectors. They are able to develop and implement industry actions to drive change and form a contact point for stronger engagement with government.
- Iwi groups are increasingly significant business players, but Maori workers are over-represented in most of the high-risk sectors (for example, fishing, forestry and construction).
- Pacific business, community leaders and employers with a large number of Pacific employees are well-placed to influence and facilitate change among workers and their families. Pacific people are a growing part of the New Zealand workforce, and have been traditionally over-represented in the service and manufacturing industries, which account for a significant number of workplace injuries.
Addressing the burden of occupational health
Providing more focus and delivery for occupational health issues was one of the main areas for focus to come out of the review of the national Strategy. This Action Agenda will address this often hidden but significant problem. 17,000 new cases of work-related disease are reported every year.
Over the next three years, the Action Agenda will provide for:
- improved surveillance of work-related diseases
- improved awareness and understanding of occupational health issues facing workers
- sector-specific actions in the Sector Action Plans on key areas where harm is occurring, including consideration of the management of hazardous substances.
The framework for action
The diagram above shows how the Action Agenda sits below and feeds into the national Workplace Health and Safety Strategy. The actions and activities in each of the five sectors of construction, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and fishing will be guided by the four action areas of leadership, capability, knowledge and health and safety systems.
Action Area 1: Growing safety leadership
Leading health and safety is everyone's business - government, industry and workers all play a significant role. Quality leadership is important at both governance and management levels, but it is just as important on the shop floor, ensuring the active involvement of workers at every level. Business and sector leaders are in the unique position to set the direction and clear a path for those already engaged in the technical and operational side of health and safety. Leadership is more than just how senior a person is. It is as much about their commitment and drive and their dedication to ensuring that health and safety is a fundamental part of their everyday business. These qualities can and do exist at all levels in workplaces, and we need to find ways to harness that positive energy.
The priorities for 2010-2013 are:
- building effective and viable safety leadership in business and sector leaders, and stakeholders involved in workplace health and safety
- better coordination of health and safety activity focused on harm reduction in our high-risk sectors.
The Actions
1.1 Industry health and safety leadership groups will be established within each of the priority sectors by December 2010.
1.2 Development and progressive release of Sector Action Plans for construction, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and fishing, which will include interventions to address identified priority harm areas, by June 2011.
1.3 A Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum will be publicly launched by July 2010 and will start improving, harnessing and focusing safety leadership in New Zealand towards zero harm in workplaces.
Performance will be demonstrated by:
- increasing numbers of established health and safety leadership groups
- Sector Action Plans being publicly released
- increasing numbers of business leaders signing up to the Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum
- increasing numbers of initiatives that demonstrate a joint approach.
Action Area 2: Developing capability
Capability involves equipping people and organisations with the necessary skills and confidence and providing the opportunity for them to contribute to improved workplace health and safety. Capability is critical for building healthy, safe and productive workplaces. This applies equally to small and large businesses and is critical to the work of professional groups and government agencies charged with developing health and safety policy.
The priorities for 2010-2013 are:
- improving employee capacity to engage in the health and safety management process through the training of health and safety representatives
- strengthening the competency framework for health and safety professionals
- improving capability for small business.
The Actions
2.1 A health and safety professional alliance will be established by June 2012.
2.2 A collated overview of Industry Training Organisation (ITO) training in priority sectors will be completed by June 2012.
2.3 The capability of health and safety representatives will continue to be improved through training.
2.4 Online learning modules delivering health and safety representative training will be developed by December 2011.
2.5 A website providing health and safety representatives with information to support them in their role and enable them to be part of a wider peer support network will be operational by December 2011.
2.6 New practical tools for small business in the priority sectors will be developed and promoted by December 2013.
Performance will be demonstrated by:
- increasing numbers of people signing up to the health and safety representatives' website
- increasing numbers of trained health and safety representatives
- increasing usage rates of new support tools for small business.
Action Area 3: Building knowledge
Developing effective systems, processes and policy requires sound knowledge. Knowledge informs leadership and fuels the development and maintenance of capacity in health and safety in our workplaces. Knowledge includes health and safety research, incidence data, occupational health data, international trends, workplace experiences and the accessibility and quality of technical guidance.
The priorities for 2010-2013 are:
- improving standards and guidance in priority sectors
- sharpening our data collection and dissemination in the priority sectors
- improving health and safety surveillance and workplace data, particularly health and safety metrics, to assist sectors and workplaces to benchmark their performance
- progressively reviewing Department of Labour regulations, standards and guidance in the priority sectors.
The Actions
3.1 A pilot national surveillance system for occupational health will be developed by December 2011.
3.2 The first State of Workplace Health and Safety in New Zealand report will be published by December 2010.
3.3 Systematic analysis of the Statistics New Zealand official injury data set will be completed by December 2011.
3.4 Health and safety-related standards and guidance for the priority sectors will be progressively reviewed and updated between July 2010 and June 2013.
Performance will be demonstrated by:
- an operational pilot occupational health surveillance system
- a State of Workplace Health and Safety report produced and published annually from December 2010
- reviewing and updating the range of standards and guidance material for the priority sectors to ensure that duty holders have access to information that will support them to meet the Health and Safety in Employment Act's requirements
- the official injury data set being used to inform ongoing policy and intervention development
- an increased knowledge and understanding of the specific health and safety problems and trends within the priority sectors.
Action Area 4: Supporting a robust health and safety system
Our workplaces do not operate in isolation. We have a legislative framework of the Health and Safety in Employment (HSE) Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act, a worker compensation and rehabilitation scheme (ACC) and a range of training organisations, standards and guidance. There are also workplace-specific systems and processes.
In combination, these constitute the infrastructure for health and safety in the workplace - the underpinning health and safety system. This system enables the expectations of government, industry and the community to be met and provides the tools required for health and safety in New Zealand workplaces to achieve higher levels of performance.
Priorities for 2010-2013 are:
- increasing emphasis on occupational health through a more focused programme of activity under both HSE and HSNO
- maintaining consistent application of the HSE and HSNO Acts in workplaces in the five priority sectors
- providing more effective information and promotion of key health and safety messages in the priority sectors
- increasing understanding of industry self-regulation models and their applicability in New Zealand
- improving financial incentives to improve workplace safety and encourage good rehabilitation after a personal injury
- helping employers with poor injury and illness statistics to improve the health and safety of their workplaces
- increased coordination of the hazardous substances legislative framework.
The Actions
4.1 ACC will consult with key stakeholders prior to introducing experience rating by April 2011.
4.2 A national Occupational Health Action Plan for 2011-2013 will be completed by December 2010.
4.3 Strategic enforcement action will be progressively directed to all priority sectors by December 2013.
4.4 An investigation of industry self-regulation models will be completed and published by December 2012.
4.5 A joint agency plan for promoting health and safety harm reduction messages in the priority sectors will be developed by December 2010.
Performance will be demonstrated by:
- an Occupational Health Action Plan that has significant buy-in from occupational health professionals and health practitioners and researchers
- experience rating introduced
- enforcement activity that demonstrates that enforcement responses were fair, impartial, consistent and proportionate to the seriousness and extent of any harm or the potential for harm in any given situation
- a clear consensus on the core elements and place of industry self-governance within New Zealand's existing workplace health and safety framework
- an increased understanding of the role of industry self-governance within New Zealand's existing workplace health and safety framework.