Senior People Risk Consultant at LGIS
Katherine is Senior People Risk Consultant at LGIS and provides a variety of professional health and safety advice and support services to local governments in Western Australia. Her role involves liaising with members on work health and safety matters to identify areas of concern and tailor functional solutions for effective risk management, legislative compliance and ultimately harm prevention
A recent case involving the Shire of Denmark and a tourist turned on
whether pea gravel at the bottom of some stairs was an obvious risk and
what is the extent of a local government’s duty of care in relation to obvious risks.
LGIS, together with WorkCover WA and legal partners Mills Oakley and Moray & Agnew have delivered four sector specific information sessions on the new Workers Compensation and Injury Management Act (2023) WA.
Members have been asking ‘How do we manage the use and charging of e-scooter and bikes (micro-mobility)?’. Charging stations and facilities have already been made available by some members while others are considering the potential benefits.
The first step is to adopt a risk management approach (RMA) – it’s the same technique used for physical hazards. An RMA is a tool to identify and address the causal factors and systematic issues that may exist in the workplace. It can be done at individual, team, and organisational levels.
This step has three elements – preparation, data, and consultation. Preparation could consider who needs to participate, confidentiality and any reference material that may be needed. The data element may look at the information that’s already available, incident reports, complaints, absenteeism rates, turnover, survey results, direct observation, workplace change and previous assessments. The last part, consultation, incorporates focus groups, staff surveys or individual interviews.
Once the hazards have been identified it’s time to assess them. What is the likelihood and severity of injury/harm occurring due to the identified hazard/risk? This is where a risk matrix tool will help identify whether there is a low to extreme risk and the potential consequences from insignificant to catastrophic.
Be prepared to answer questions like who might be impacted by the risk/hazard, what is causing the hazard, what is the duration and frequency of exposure and how urgently is an action required.
Now that you’ve worked out which risks are most serious and have the potential to cause the most harm it’s time to look at implementing controls. The hierarchy of controls model provides guidance on the three levels of control. In a perfect world all hazards will be eliminated, and every effort should be made to do this if it is reasonably practicable to do so. Where this is not possible then controls should be implemented to reduce the harm the hazard may cause if workers were to be exposed to it.
The last step is one that’s often forgotten, but it’s equally important as the other three. Often a control may be implemented and have unintended consequences or even cause new hazards. Identify which controls are working, and which ones need to be improved due to not being as effective as possible.
The workers in the finance department at the Shire of Westralia, are responsible for managing the financial operations and budgets of various departments and programs.
Lately, the department has faced several challenges – a long term employee with lots of knowledge has retired and the Shire is struggling to find a replacement, and the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) will be auditing them in three months.
The workers must meet strict deadlines and ensure accuracy in financial reporting. There are few resources and support, limited training opportunities, and outdated technology.
Workers often find themselves working long hours and experiencing high levels of stress to keep up with the demands of their roles.
The Safety Officer works with the Deputy CEO, and reviews WorkSafe WA’s regulations on psychosocial hazards and calls the LGIS People Risk Team for advice on how to get started.
They ensure confidentiality and decide to do one-on-one interviews with members of the finance team, look at complaints, review role descriptions, study leave rates, and consider recent changes in the workplace.
Through this process they identify the following hazards:
The first hazard they assess is ‘high/excessive work demands’. They use a risk matrix to determine the severity of the risk. It’s decided that since staff are already reporting high work demands that the likelihood is ‘almost certain’. Staff have said that they’ve been feeling like this for about four weeks and that the OAG audit will increase the workload.
The consequence is ranked as ‘Moderate’ – indicating that staff may experience stress which could impact their overall wellbeing both physical and psychological. Ultimately, this is a ‘High’ risk hazard.
It’s a priority to address this psychosocial hazard given its risk rating. The Safety Officer and Deputy CEO consider a variety of organisational and risk minimisation controls. They decide that they will:
Organisational controls
Risk minimisation control measures
The Safety Officer and Deputy CEO agree to review the control measures in two months. They aim to immediately implement some measures to reduce overload and then implement more longer-term controls such as training to develop efficiency and competencies.
For more information on how to adopt a risk management approach, please get in touch with our People Risk Manager, Emma Horsefield at [email protected]
or 0407 957932.
There’s less than eight weeks to go before we say goodbye to 2023/24 and the vast majority of members have completed their declarations for the 2024/25 membership year.
Across Western Australia local governments create and deliver spaces that welcome everyone – from libraries to recreation centres and playgrounds. These services and facilities foster community connection but unfortunately they can also witness anti-social behaviour.
CCTV, alarms and dedicated security may require significant investment (depending on scope), but for those local governments who have identified serious hazards associated with ASB, it’s an investment that may be warranted. When considering these options, it’s important to consider not just the initial investment but the ongoing commitment of resources.
LGIS is the unifying name for the dedicated suite of risk financing and management services for WA local governments, established by the WA Local Government Association in conjunction with JLT Public Sector (part of the Marsh group of companies). LGIS is managed by JLT Public Sector (ABN 69 009 098 864 AFS Licence 226827).
Risk Matters, via this website, is designed to keep members, their staff and elected members informed on topical risk management and insurance issues and LGIS programs and services.
