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9 February 2015

Proposal for an EPA Notice for Enforcement Officer Qualifications

Thank you for the opportunity for the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) to provide a

submission on the proposal for an EPA notice for Enforcement Officer qualifications.

The following submission represents the views of the ARPHS and does not necessarily reflect the

views of the three District Health Boards it serves. Please refer to Appendix 1 for more information

on ARPHS.

The primary contact point for this submission is:

Auckland Regional Public Health Service

Private Bag 92 605

Symonds Street

Auckland 1150

Yours sincerely,

William Rainger

Dr. Denise Barnfather

Service Manager Medical Officer of Health Auckland Regional Public Health Service Auckland Regional Public Health Service

Auckland Regional Public Health

Service

Cornwall Complex

Floor 2, Building 15

Greenlane Clinical Centre

Private Bag 92 605

Symonds Street

Auckland 1150

New Zealand

Telephone: 09-623 4600

Facsimile: 09-623 4633

Summary comments 1. ARPHS does not support the changes to Hazardous Substance Enforcement Officer

qualifications in their current form.

2. Safety over cost considerations should be the priority consideration when assessing whether the qualification requirements of Hazardous Substance Enforcement Officers should be changed.

3. HSNO Enforcement Officers have significant statutory responsibilities with potential to result in injury or death to themselves or to others. How competence will be improved and maintained needs to be carefully considered.

4. While we support efforts to increase the number of Enforcement Officers, the proposal does not outline how the competence of Enforcement Officers will be maintained in light of the reduction in qualification requirements.

5. ARPHS recommends retention of a period for practical experience for trainee officers,

to ensure sufficient time and opportunity for competency to be acquired, along with a nationally standardized measure of competency, for all officers.

6. In the absence of such legislated training tools, ARPHS recommends the following: o Organisations will need to consider increased training support to ensure

enforcement officers are appropriately skilled for managing potentially high risk situations. ARPHS recommends that these costs are considered in the proposal document.

o Central Government should re-consider their role in providing increased guidance and support for maintaining the capacity of Enforcement Agencies to manage hazardous substances.

7. Further information is required on the current and projected numbers of warranted

officers, the estimated effective shortfall in numbers, and the reasons why current numbers are considered inadequate. This information would help better assess the extent of the problem and allow informed consideration of alternative options.

Do you have any comment about additional benefits or costs arising from the proposal? Health and safety should be the primary objective not costs 8. Proposal for EPA notices should contain an analysis of the risks and benefits to human

health.

9. ARPHS advocates that the overarching objective for any regulatory system aiming to reduce harm to human health and safety (which was the main concern of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health with current legislation) must be to ensure the implementation of best, evidence-based practice, and where evidence is inadequate, ensure that a sufficiently precautionary approach is taken. o The benefits of an EPA notice for Enforcement Officer Qualifications as detailed in

the consultation paper has focused almost exclusively on cost reduction and international best practice.

i. International best practice as the appropriate standard, carries an assumption that the best of what is done internationally is sufficiently protective of health. This may or may not be the case.

ii. The question of whether or not cost reduction and international best practice will improve health and safety, based on evidence of best practice and a precautionary approach, has not been addressed in the consultation document.

o There is a significant body of literature on the primacy of safety as the overarching objective over cost considerations if a system is to efficiently and effectively achieve health and safety improvements1.

i. Prioritising cost considerations over safety concerns may lead to health and safety inadequacies when responding to hazardous substance incidents.

ii. Review of interagency HSNO emergency responses in Auckland consistently indicate that further emphasis on public and workplace safety is required. There is an identified need to both increase and up-skill the HSNO warranted workforce and a particularly outstanding need for Worksafe New Zealand officers to be available for inter-sectorial emergency responses.

Changes to HSNO may have significant impacts on workplace health and safety

10. ARPHS also notes the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) cabinet paper, Improving Health and Safety at Work2 that in New Zealand 600-900 premature deaths per year occur from occupational ill-health and are estimated to cost $3.5 billion or more annually (excluding the social toll) and a large majority (438-675) stem from workplace use of hazardous substances. o Even a small change that increased workplace health and safety related incidents

associated with hazardous substances by 1.5% would lead to a significant increase in costs.

The current approach has significant benefits 11. ARPHS recommends the retention of a period for practical experience for trainee

officers so that there is sufficient time and opportunity for competency to be acquired. o There are a wide variety of scenarios in managing the range of hazardous substance

incidents that can occur. Incidents may be large or small in scale, in commercial or residential settings or in rural and metropolitan areas. Enforcement officers have differing level of experiences in managing incidents in each of these situations.

12. The existing requirements for an Enforcement Officer to have six months experience

under the guidance of a HSNO warranted officer ensures that a trainee is given sufficient repeated opportunities to personally observe a range of potentially dangerous situations while under the supervision of an experienced person.

13. In its present form, the EPA notice could potentially see inexperienced Enforcement

Officers assuming responsibility for supervisory responsibilities or for activities such as after-hours incidents where staff capability may already be sub-optimal.

1 Choudhry, R, Fang, D and Mohamed, S (2007) ‘The nature of safety culture: A survey of the state-of-the-art’, Safety Science, 45, 10, pp

993–1012. 2 http://www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/workplace-health-and-safety-reform

o ARPHS recommends consideration is given to excluding inexperienced Enforcement Officers from undertaking supervisory responsibilities, including for after-hours incidents where practical experience is highly valuable.

The cost of increased guidance, training and support has not been adequately considered

14. While removing the six month practical experience requirements for trainee officers

may facilitate increased recruitment of Enforcement Officers and increase the HSNO capacity of Enforcement Agencies, we note that these actions alone will not necessarily increase the HSNO capability of Enforcement Agencies. A decrease in capability of Enforcement Agencies may decrease the effectiveness of legislation.

15. ARPHS endorses the comments in the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and

Safety report that indicate: o “A strong theme among submitters was that the current primary regulator does not

provide adequate leadership within the workplace health and safety system. Duty holders were uncertain about what they needed to do to meet their obligations. Enforcement is weak, and there is inadequate investment in developing support systems, such as education and training provision and professional advisers.”3

o We also note the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) cabinet paper, Improving Health and Safety at Work comments that: “MBIE’s resources, capability and enforcement of regulatory requirements in relation to occupational health have all declined over time. Guidance and education material that could assist firms to comply is unavailable, complex or incomplete for both regimes.”4

16. ARPHS recommends that the cost of the non-legislative tools that will be required to ensure continued capability of HSNO Enforcement Agencies should be considered in making a decision on this issue. The range of support package activities that could be provided to support improved capability for HSNO enforcement officers could include: o A national, online register of competent workplace health and safety professionals; o Provision of coordinated training and assessment opportunities specific to HSNO

Enforcement Officer roles and responsibilities; o Information sharing and provision of guidance on shared issues such as the

development of person specification and position description documentation, for recruiting HSNO Enforcement Officers;

o Support for peak professional bodies that can promote improved professional development for hazardous substance management; and

o Support for simulation activities such as the coordination of mock incident response exercises.

i. ARPHS valued the dirty bomb exercise held in 2010 in preparation for the 2011 Rugby World Cup as a capability building experience.

17. The Auckland Hazardous Substance Technical Liaison Committee (HSTLC) is chaired and

managed by the New Zealand Fire Service and meets quarterly. It provides a regional mechanism for the hazardous substances workforce (regulatory enforcement agencies and emergency first responders) to share hazardous substance incident information,

3 http://hstaskforce.govt.nz/

4 http://www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/workplace-health-and-safety-reform

and to plan for and debrief after incidents or emergencies involving hazardous substances. o ARPHS commends the role of Auckland HSTLC in facilitating information sharing

and opportunities to develop the knowledge and effectiveness of HSNO Enforcement Officers across all regulatory enforcement agencies, although Worksafe officers have been notably largely absent from these meetings

o ARPHS is highly supportive of measures to improve national level consistency and support for the Auckland HSTLC. For example, significant learnings from hazardous substance incidents could be shared with other HSTLC groups and/or other hazardous substance discussion fora.

18. Central Government support for non-legislative tools and the HSTLC will require the involvement of both the EPA and Worksafe given Enforcement Agencies and Enforcement Officers have both workplace and non-workplace related statutory responsibilities under the legislation.

Nationally consistent standards need to be maintained and strengthened 19. ARPHS recommends that in addition to retention of a period for practical experience for

trainee officers, nationally standardized measures of competency need to be maintained and strengthened. Nationally approved health and safety courses should be supported and improved. o Work with hazardous substances often occurs in a multiagency setting that

requires officers to work together in their complementary roles and often in a high risk or high stress situation such as a hazardous substance emergency. In such settings it is imperative that all warranted hazardous substances officers share a common baseline of knowledge and can rely on that shared knowledge and baseline level of experience.

o Interagency scenarios should form part of the standardised training to facilitate interagency functioning, especially in emergency situations.

20. A nationally consistent standard would assist any person who appoints an enforcement

officer (who under s 100 of the act is liable for their actions) to readily identify appointees with appropriate qualifications.

21. ARPHS recommends provision of central government support to assist Enforcement

Agencies and their Enforcement Officers in attaining the nationally consistent standard.

Further information is required 22. No detailed information is provided in the consultation document on the current and

projected numbers of warranted officers, the estimated effective shortfall in numbers, and the reasons why current numbers are considered inadequate. o Such information would be useful for gauging the extent of the problem and

considering the relevant costs and benefits in decreasing the capability requirements for enforcement officers so an examination of alternative options can occur.

Appendix 1 - Auckland Regional Public Health Service

Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) provides public health services for the three district

health boards (DHBs) in the Auckland region (Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waitemata District

Health Boards), with the primary governance mechanism for the Service resting with Auckland

District Health Board.

ARPHS has a statutory obligation under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 to

improve, promote and protect the health of people and communities in the Auckland region. The

Medical Officer of Health has an enforcement and regulatory role under the Health Act 1956 and

other legislative designations to protect the health of the community.

ARPHS’ primary role is to improve population health. It actively seeks to influence any initiatives or

proposals that may affect population health in the Auckland region to maximise their positive impact

and minimise possible negative effects on population health.

The Auckland region faces a number of public health challenges through changing demographics,

increasingly diverse communities, increasing incidence of lifestyle-related health conditions such as

obesity and type 2 diabetes, outstanding infrastructure needs, the balancing of transport needs, and

the reconciliation of urban design and urban intensification issues.