Introduction
Section 26A of the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WHS Act) places a duty on a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) that provides work health and safety (WHS) services to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that those services do not impose a risk to persons at the workplace.
What is a WHS service?
WHS services are:
Any services that relate to work health and safety including any products or things provided as part of those services. A WHS service involves an activity that assists or enhances the ability of another PCBU to meet their WHS duties.
To be considered a WHS service, the activity will have all of the following characteristics:
- it must relate to work health and safety
- it must be intended to address the elimination of a hazard or control of a risk
- it is provided by a PCBU (the WHS service provider) to another PCBU (the recipient)
- it is provided in relation to a specific workplace or workplaces.
The WHS service could be providing any of the following that relate to work health and safety:
- recommendations or other advice
- testing or analysis
- information or documents including a report, plan, programme, strategy, guideline or manual
- training or other educational course.
For a WHS service to be provided there must be an agreement between the WHS service provider and the recipient. This can be verbal or written. A written contractual arrangement between the WHS service provider and the WHS service recipient may assist in determining the precise parameters of the WHS service, and the relevant use to which it is intended to be applied.
