Reasonably Practicable

Two words that create such a mouthful. Just don't try to say it quickly at the end of the xmas party!

Reasonably Practicable is the most visible phrase of the Work Health & Safety Act 2011.

Risk Management principles form the basis for determining Reasonably Practicable (see Section 18) :

• Assessing the likelihood & the degree of harm of the hazard/risk .
• Evaluating what the employee knows or ought to know about the risk and ways to elimante or minimise the risk.
• Availability & suitability of methods to eliminate or minimise the risk
• Assessing if the cost of risk elimination or control is proportionate to the risk.

The assessment of elimination of risk before assessing other forms of risk control is strongly emphasised.

Now is the time to evaluate the appropriateness of an organisation's OHS risk matrix to ensure it takes into account the above points. A structured and recordable method for deciding what is Reasonably Practicable will be a vital component of any OHS Management System.

The new legislation rightly removes the "reverse onus of proof" and replaces it with what is basically "innocent until proven guilty". If an organisations OHS system isn't able to demonstrate a process for assessing Reasonably Practicable it may find itself exposed.