What makes a good SSSP?

SSSP is your record of “3 C”

A SSSP is how you comply with the overlapping duties requirement of HSWA (sections 31–34) which require that PCBUs involved in a project: consult, co-operate, and co-ordinate with one another on how health and safety is managed (otherwise known as the “3 C’s”).

The SSSP is where all PCBU involved in a project together identify the potential risks associated with the work AND the site, how these will be controlled, who is responsible for what and what systems will be used to manage health and safety. They are a key element in Contractor Management

There is a new ACOP for Residential Construction arriving shortly – it essentially does the same thing as HSWA (sections 31–34).

There is no standard format for a SSSP. Some organisations (Site Safe) provide templates but these are no more than blank documents and, even then, never sufficient.

What makes a good SSSP?

• Describe the work and relevant features of the location
• Roles and responsibilities – defined for all PCBU.
• Supervision – site management (who and how).
• Risks and controls – the SSSP needs to document all the critical risks (from the perspective of all PCBU) and how these will be controlled. Split it in two. Part One are task related risks – these will generally be the same regardless of location. Part Two are site specific risks – things like traffic, parallel operations on site, power lines, access limitations, slopes.
• Safe Work Procedure (SWP) – There are typically only a few critical risks. The best way to document controls for these may be a Safe Work Procedure (SWP). Having it is a SWP puts it all in one place and provides a document that can be trained and audited against.
• Competence – confirm those doing the work have the required training / qualifications / experience to perform the work. This is typically in the form of a competency register.
• Equipment – detail the equipment that will be used, associated maintenance / assurance processes.
• Site rules
• PCBU communication / interaction – what, who and how
• Worker engagement
• Dealing with incidents and emergencies
• Monitoring / inspection

Why are SSSP such a problem?

Tick the box mentality

Firstly, many do not understand the purpose of a SSSP. They see it as information they need to
provide in order to be awarded work. “As painless as possible” is the attitude, so pulling some
forms or creating a hazard list from a pick list is used to meet this objective. This is classic “tick
the box” stuff. It is not identifying the critical hazards and controls and showing the business
has robust health and safety management systems in place to support health and safety
performance in practice.

Resource limitations

Secondly, SME don’t have dedicated HSE resources to prepare these things. However, a
quality customised should SSSP be sufficient in most cases, provided the risks of specific sites
are assessed and the particular requirements of those in management control of the site
(typically the landlord) are accommodated. So a business investing some effort in
developing their own SSSP should be worthwhile.

Cut and paste

The first “S” in SSSP is Site. You can’t, as one prominent HSE provider advertises “Create
a Site Specific Safety Plan (SSSP) in minutes using the handy generator. … just answer a few
simple questions to automatically generate a plan.” Most SSSP are fine with the task risks as
these are relatively constant. What they miss is site risks – power lines, forklift operations,
loading zones, high risk activity on site, noise, dust etc.

Monitoring

Paper does not deliver health and safety. It is what happens in reality that matters
and, to this end, monitoring is key. Yet the self-inspection templates provided in SSSP are
woefully deficient. The main issue is the content is not aligned to the controls that the process
is meant to be checking. Monitoring is not about checking a box, it is about identifying
whether controls for this work on this site are working and, if not, fixing it. The SSSP is thus a
living document and simply the front end of a process.