Under the Unit Titles Act 2010 (UTA), a Body Corporate is a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU).
Committee members (or at least some of them, depending on their roles) will be “Officers” (persons who exercise significant influence over the management of the body corporate). Officers must exercise due diligence to ensure the body corporate complies with its duties/obligations.
Any “Officer” of a PCBU has a specific duty of due diligence to ensure that their PCBU is complying with its duties under the HSWA.
- The health and safety of contractors
- The means of access/egress to the workplace, and work activity is safe
- All equipment, tools, machinery provided are without risks to the health and safety of workers and other people.
- Conduct a risk assessment to identify hazards
- Inform and communicate these hazards to people working on the property and prepare a health and safety policy to address these risks
- Keep a register of incidents (injury, near misses and accidents)
- Make sure that contractors use adequate resources to health and safety.
- And ensure that workers (contractors) are using safe procedures while working, bodies corporate should:
- Perform a reference check to ensure contractors have a good safety record, and the necessary licenses and insurance policies; and
- Consult, co-operate and co-ordinate activities with contractors including: and
- Ensure the contractor prepares a safe work method statement (SWMS) for any high-risk work that is undertaken.