Independent from executive officer liability under the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), RMS NSW now requires Chain of Responsibility Management Plans (COR MP) for councils they engage. 

The HVNL ignores contract terms such as “comply with all laws” and use contact terms as evidence of breach of the HVNL. RMS NSW has elected to require COR MPs so that parties being funded by RMS NSW provide assurance that the work will be undertaken safely.

The RMS NSW requirement for COR is consistent with the other funding conditions from RMS, for management plans across environment and safety and for mine (quarry) activities.

The fines under the Heavy Vehicle National Law are separate to the current fines for local government and employees under the HVNL for:

• Mass (total, over axle and imbalanced)
• Dimension (over)
• Speed issues (encouraging someone to speed or not discouraging someone from speeding)
• Fatigue issues (encouraging someone to not complying with statutory work and rest requirements or not discouraging someone who is not complying with statutory work and rest requirements)
• Loading (in an unsafe way)
• Load restraint (in an unsafe way)
• Unloading (in an unsafe way)
• Maintenance, flagged for 2018 (failing to maintain to appropriate vehicle standards)

Councils must now be audited against its CoR Management Plan, usually done as part of integrated systems audits. Relevant external service providers specialised in the CoR provisions should be engaged to conduct the audits.

As a minimum, the CoR Management Plan required by RMS NSW under G2-C2 General Requirements (Major Contracts) must address:

• hazard identification and risk analysis of CoR issues.
• reporting on near misses, accidents, incidents and infringements arising from CoR issues, within two working days of such events taking place, and including corrective actions in monthly progress reports
• the orderly management of CoR issues throughout the Contractor’s Work and the provision of evidence that the Contractor has met its legal CoR obligations
• methods of managing interfaces with other stakeholders, suppliers, subcontractors and other organisations related to CoR
• methods of dealing with relevant regulators and Authorities related to CoR
• strategy and processes for obtaining all necessary approvals which have CoR implications
• methods of developing, implementing and reporting on safety metrics for CoR
• the organisation chart showing team structure and defining CoR responsibilities, including for the project handover stage
• CoR related communication protocols, including for the project handover stage
• key personnel, description of their positions/qualifications and reporting lines, as related to CoR
• resources management, including addressing shortage of skilled resources that are critical to management of CoR issues

Given councils are exposed under HVNL, the RMS NSW requirement provides a sound framework for managing all activities in a consistent way to manage down the council’s exposure and the exposure for executive officers.

When engaging other parties who operate under other systems, councils should ensure that the scheme is relevant to their risk decisions. For example, accepting:

• NHVAS accreditation (for fatigue as approved by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator) means drivers can drive for longer hours and be more tired, contrary to existing council workplace standards. If the fatigue accreditation were to be accepted, then the remaining council risk would still need to be addressed by the transport operator.
• An RMS NSW audit, will only deal with the council business aspects related to RMS NSW and not all of the council activities.
• A code audit will only deal with code related issues and not the issues as addressed by the council across the whole of the business.

For further information and support see coraustralia.com or call Andrew Watt on 0400 440 900.