So far the new ISO 45001 Standard has passed through several phases.
To date:
- ISO PC 283 finished the first working draft of ISO 45001 in October 2013.
- The first committee draft (CD1) produced in July 2014.
- In October 2014, the Project Committee failed to reach a consensus on the proposed changes and the standard didn’t progress to DIS stage in October 2014 as initially planned.
Currently:
- ISO 45001 is currently at the second committee draft stage (CD2) of the development. This is the third stage in the development process of the standard of the first consultation phase.
- During this stage, the ISO member countries have chosen to participate in the development of the new standard have two months to comment on the draft.
- Voting on CD2 began on 30 March 2015 and as long as the CD2 is approved, it is estimated ISO 45001 DIS will be registered at the end of June 2015 and will be published in late August/early September 2015.
Timeline
*subject to change
At this moment in time there are 60,000 organisations in 125 countries which are certified to OHSAS 18001. Unlike the BS OHSAS 18000 series which contains two documents, (18001 which outlines the requirements and 18002 which gives extensive guidance), ISO 45001 will be a single document with specifications and a short interpretation guidance annex.
CD1 was made publicly available for interested parties to review and comment on the document. At CD2 the Project Committee has to address these comments before moving onto the next stage. The Project Committee produced CD1 with the text following the same high level framework (Annex SL) as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
Comments on the clauses from the first Committee Draft are as follows:
Clauses 1 & 2:
- Text in these sections was still immature at the submission phase – many of the comments focused on the need to align the introduction with the wording used in the main text and definitions, such as ‘workers’.
- The comments reflect a need to look at how to achieve consistency and balance in the way Health & Safety aspects are used throughout.
Clause 3:
- The comments related mostly to pivotal definitions such as ‘worker’ and ‘workplace’.
- Questions were also raised about changing the term ‘contractor’ to ‘external provider’ and whether this would be accepted at a global level.
Clauses 4-6:
- The comments in clause 4 were mostly concerned with inconsistencies between ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 and ISO 9001.
- In clause 5, comments related to the role of top management, as well as occupational Health & Safety performance and outcomes.
- Comments regarding to clause 6 raised concerns about the inconsistent use of certain terms, such as ‘hazard’ and ‘incident’.
Clauses 7-10:
- Clause 7 highlighted issues around resources, competence and awareness. This included documented information, communication, participation, consultation and representation.
- Clause 8 centred around the hierarchy of control management of change, outsourcing, procurement, contractors, emergency preparedness and response. This included changing ‘contractors’ to ‘external providers’ and using ‘worker’ instead of ‘employee’.
- Comments referring to clause 9 discussed monitoring, measurement, analysis and the evaluation of compliance. These also challenged aspects of the internal audit and management review.
- The comments regarding clause 10 were mostly concerned with incident investigation, non-conformity, corrective action and continual improvement.
Annex A:
Annex A aims to give guidance on the interpretation of ISO 45001, not the implementation of it. Task groups within the Project Committee have been concentrating on drafting the requirements first with the Annex written last. Consequently, the text was relatively immature when the Committee Draft was made available. Most of the comments received in relation to Annex A note the inconsistencies and the lack of alignment between the Annex and the main body of the standard.
If you require more information about ISO 45001, please check out these other blog posts:
Preparing for ISO 45001 – The New Health & Safety Standard
ISO 45001: The New Health & Safety Standard
Additionally, keep an eye on our blog or follow us on Twitter for any updates.
Sources:
Lloyd’s Register: http://www.lrqa.co.uk/iso-standards-revisions/iso-45001/
