Measuring and reporting on work health and safety

This report is intended primarily for business leaders and work health and safety (WHS) managers of medium to large organisations. It examines the performance information which officers may find useful to assist them in exercising due diligence in discharging their duties under the model Work Health and Safety Act (model WHS Act). It also provides guidance on the type of information investors and other stakeholders are seeking in company annual reports.The development of this report included a review of the academic and professional literature, interviews with key stakeholders, and workshops involving participants drawn from a cross section of industries across Australia. Initiated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia andNew Zealand, and supported by Safe Work Australia and the Safety Institute of Australia, this project benefited from both accounting and WHS expertise and advice. WHS practitioners and people with experience preparing company reports attended workshops in major cities and rural/regional areas around Australia to provide feedback on the draft report. A virtual seminar and online surveys gathered further feedback which fed into refining the final report.The resulting report sets out the information that WHS and accounting professionals saw as necessary for the two professions to be able to share information. It will support the consultative process required to identify useful WHS measures to help industry improve its WHS performance. It will also help businesses to provide informative and useful external reports which meet both corporate social responsibility and external benchmarking objectives. Ultimately this report highlightsexternal and internal indicators to improve organisational level WHS reporting and to help officers discharge their WHS duties under the model WHS Act with due diligence. Officers should however ensure that they are familiar with the WHS laws that apply in their jurisdiction.The report is further underpinned by a series of four research papers published on the Safe Work Australia website on The Role of Accounting in Work Health and Safety Governance. These papers include matters related to issues in the measurement and reporting of WHS performance, the assurance and verification of WHS information, the business case for safe, healthy and productive work, and performance measurement, incentives and organisational culture