This is a simplified question and answer section on the auditing of workplace health and safety.

Q. Is there a specific legal requirement to carry out safety inspections?

A. No. However various legal duties placed on employers are difficult to satisfy unless some form of inspection or other monitoring of standards is carried out.

Q. Can we carry out audits ourselves or should we use a consultant?

A. Audits are generally recognised as best being done by someone who has the knowledge and experience, who is impartial and who is respected by the people being audited. Consultants can satisfy these and other criteria but equally there may be people with the desirable attributes within the organisation.

Q. How many different forms of workplace audits or inspections are there?

A. Safety audits or inspections can take many forms. Every time a manager walks around the area they are responsible for should be a form of inspection as they should be on the lookout for hazards, unsafe practices, etc. At the other end of the scale, perhaps every three months, a manager, with people from the work area, should use some form of checklist to carry out a more structured inspection. There are various ways of carrying out inspections in between. What is important is to use a variety of techniques developed through experience to achieve good safety standards in your own business. A good audit system will enable the auditor to obtain all the necessary information without excessive decisions being needed at the workplace. Many commercial systems exist, either computer based or paper based, which provide an off the shelf solution. Most of these can be tailored to suit the individual requirements of a particular audit. The expense of these systems must be balanced against the very real time and cost burden of designing a system in-house. It is important to remember that the record of the audit may be needed to prove compliance with the requirements of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992, and thus must, of itself, be adequate and credible.