Make contractor safety visible from engagement to verification

How Work Safety Hub can help

Build contractor arrangements that work in practice

Professional boundary: Work Safety Hub provides advisory and assurance support within an agreed scope. Your authorised people remain responsible for operational decisions, including whether work may proceed.

Review subcontractor SWMS against the work on site

A safe work method statement (SWMS) review should connect the planned high-risk construction work with the conditions, people and controls on site. Receiving a signed document is not evidence that those controls are in place or effective.

What should a subcontractor SWMS review check?

Check that the SWMS identifies the relevant high-risk construction work, hazards and risks, describes the controls to be used, and explains how they will be implemented, monitored and reviewed. Consider site conditions and interacting activities. Involve the people doing the work and relevant health and safety representatives; the document needs to be understandable and available to them.

What if the SWMS does not match the work?

Where high-risk construction work is not being performed in accordance with the SWMS, stop it immediately or as soon as it is safe to do so. Review the mismatch and revise the SWMS where necessary. Do not treat a paperwork update as sufficient: before resuming, ensure the work can be carried out in accordance with the SWMS and the controls are implemented.

Who resolves gaps and verifies controls?

Agree who will resolve each gap, who has authority over the affected work and who will check implementation on site. A consultant's review does not transfer the duty holder's responsibilities or authorise work to proceed.

Work Safety Hub can help review your SWMS-review process and connect findings with practical contractor monitoring and assurance within an agreed scope.

For practical review questions and checks to connect the SWMS with the work on site, read how to review subcontractor SWMS on a construction project.

Requirements depend on the jurisdiction and work. Refer to Safe Work Australia's SWMS information sheet and, for Victorian work, WorkSafe Victoria's SWMS guidance. Check current requirements with the relevant regulator.

How should subcontractor SWMS connect with the project safety plan?

A SWMS describes the high-risk construction work and its controls. A project safety plan sets out how safety arrangements are coordinated across the project. Collecting subcontractor SWMS does not replace that coordination.

Which project plan applies?

Check the project’s jurisdiction, value, work and principal-contractor arrangements before deciding which requirements apply. Queensland uses a WHS management plan for a construction project; Victoria uses a health and safety coordination plan. The names, triggers and duties are not identical across Australia.

What needs to connect?

In Queensland, the WHS management plan must cover health and safety responsibilities, consultation and coordination between businesses, incident arrangements, site-specific rules, and arrangements for collecting, assessing, monitoring and reviewing SWMS. Use the applicable regulator’s requirements for your project.

In practice, connect each relevant SWMS with the people responsible for the work, interacting activities, site rules and the checks needed to verify implementation. Make the arrangements understandable and available to those who need them.

What should a review test on site?

For example, two subcontractors may each describe their own work but leave a shared access route or overlapping work sequence unresolved. A review should examine how those interfaces are coordinated, who resolves conflicts and what evidence shows the agreed arrangements are being used. A complete document set alone does not establish that the site controls work.

When work or risk-management arrangements change, review the affected project arrangements and SWMS, revise them where required and communicate the changes. Retain the existing stop-and-review process for work that does not follow its SWMS.

Where can Work Safety Hub help?

Within an agreed scope, Work Safety Hub can review how your project plan, SWMS-review process and contractor monitoring connect, then report gaps, priorities and sampling limits. Duty holders retain their responsibilities and authorised people decide whether work may proceed. Discuss your project safety review.

General guidance; confirm current requirements for the jurisdiction and work. See Queensland’s WHS management-plan guidance, WorkSafe Victoria’s coordination-plan resource and Victorian SWMS guidance. The Victorian template resource is dated 2008 and reviewed in 2022; use it alongside current requirements, rather than as a current legal checklist.

How should you choose a contractor safety management and assurance provider?

Choose a provider that understands your work and risks, checks how controls operate on site, and leaves your people with clear findings and practical actions. Compare the proposed scope, the people doing the work, their evidence-gathering approach and how the recommendations will fit day-to-day operations. Document collection alone is not evidence that controls are effective.

Six questions to ask before engaging a provider

1. What is included, and what will the review help us decide? Agree the sites, contractor activities, work stages and applicable jurisdictions. Clarify whether the engagement covers framework design, document review, site assurance or implementation support, and record exclusions.
2. Who will do the work? Ask for the named team, relevant qualifications and experience with comparable work. Ask how conflicts of interest will be managed, particularly if the provider also designed the arrangements being reviewed.
3. How will you check what happens on site? Look for a proportionate method that combines records, conversations with workers and supervisors, and observation of relevant work. Ask how missing or conflicting evidence and urgent risks will be reported, and how sampling limits will be explained.
4. Will supervisors and contractors be able to use the approach? Request an example of the proposed checks and escalation process. Test whether people can understand the requirements, raise a concern and respond when conditions change, using the systems already available where suitable.
5. What will we receive, and how will actions be followed through? Ask for a sample report with evidence, prioritised findings, agreed action owners and a method for checking completion and control effectiveness. Confirm whether follow-up verification is included in the fee.
6. Who retains responsibility and authority? Clarify who coordinates activities, resolves gaps and decides whether affected work may proceed. Advisory or assurance support does not transfer duty holders’ responsibilities or replace your authorised operational decisions.

For example, a document review can identify missing mobilisation records. A site assurance review can also examine whether the controls described in those records are being used during the sampled work. Specify which service you need and ask the provider to explain what its findings can—and cannot—establish.

Work Safety Hub can review your current contractor framework and evidence, identify material gaps and recommend a prioritised improvement plan within an agreed scope. Discuss your contractor safety review.

General guidance only. Requirements depend on the jurisdiction and work. See Safe Work Australia’s guidance on shared duties and coordination and WorkSafe Victoria’s guidance on general OHS duties. Check current requirements with the relevant regulator. These sources provide context and do not endorse any provider.

Frequently asked questions

Contractor safety management