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SafeWork NSW has published a set of practical online tools to help officers understand and meet their due diligence obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. At Actevate we welcome the release, because it turns a duty that many officers find abstract into something they can actually check themselves against.
The feedback we hear from our own clients is consistent. Officers understand that due diligence is a legal obligation. What they are far less certain about is what it looks like in day to day decision making, and what a regulator would accept as proof that they were exercising it.
Info: The self-assessment tool is free and takes only a few minutes. It is a capability building exercise, not a compliance check, and completing it does not trigger any regulator action.
Who counts as an officer
This is the first thing organisations tend to get wrong. Due diligence does not sit with the WHS team. It sits personally with the people who make, or take part in making, decisions that affect a substantial part of the business.
In practice that usually means:
- Company directors
- Chief executives and executive leadership
- Senior managers with genuine decision making authority over resources and operations
- Certain partners, office holders and public sector equivalents
Note: The duty is personal and it cannot be delegated. An officer can appoint a safety manager and still be liable, because appointing someone is not the same as verifying that what they have built actually works.
The six reasonable steps
SafeWork NSW frames due diligence as taking reasonable steps across six areas. The genuinely useful part of this release is that the regulator has now spelled out, for each step, the records an officer should be able to produce.
1. Acquire and keep up to date WHS knowledge
Annual WHS governance training for officers, quarterly briefings to the board on emerging hazards such as psychosocial risk, and keeping current with code of practice updates.
Records: officer training records, board skills matrix, briefing packs on WHS law updates.
2. Understand the operations and their hazards
Structured officer site visits to high risk locations, and periodic deep dives on critical risks aligned to the approved codes.
Records: visit logs with observations, risk registers, critical risk heat maps discussed at board or executive level.
3. Ensure appropriate resources and processes are in place
Approving and tracking budget for controls, and making sure there is enough WHS capability and frontline staffing to run operations safely.
Records: capital requests tied to risk assessments, staffing plans, maintenance records for safety critical controls.
4. Ensure incidents, hazards and risks are received and responded to in time
Escalation of notifiable incidents and overdue actions to executives against response time targets, with a clear workflow covering who analyses, who decides, by when, and how closure is verified.
Records: incident trend dashboards, action closure reports, minutes evidencing decisions and timeframes met.
5. Ensure processes exist for complying with WHS duties
Incident notification, worker consultation, compliance with notices, training and instruction, and health and safety representative training entitlements.
Records: procedure suite, training matrices, consultation records, licence schedule, notices register.
6. Verify that steps 3 to 5 are actually working
This is the step most often missed. Verification means actively confirming through audits, inspections and follow through, rather than passively receiving reports.
Records: audit plans and reports, corrective action logs, a decision and participation register cross referenced to board minutes.
Tip: Read step six as the test the other five are marked against. Most officers we work with can evidence resourcing and process. Far fewer can evidence that they checked whether any of it worked.
What the self-assessment gives you
The tool is a short questionnaire covering how effectively you are exercising your responsibilities. On completion you receive:
- Insight into your current due diligence practices
- Your strengths and your opportunities for improvement
- Tailored, prioritised actions to strengthen your safety leadership
SafeWork NSW has also published a short quick reference guide covering the fundamentals: who may be an officer, what the specific duties are, and the practical steps available to strengthen compliance. It is worth reading before you start the assessment rather than after.
Why this matters now
Two changes make this release more consequential than it first appears.
Approved codes of practice became directly enforceable in NSW from 1 July 2026. Where your systems depart from a relevant code, you now need documentation showing your approach provides an equivalent or higher standard. And psychosocial risk remains a headline SafeWork NSW regulatory priority, with the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work code the enforceable benchmark.
Officers should also be aware of the personal exposure. Where an organisation fails to comply with a WHS duty and that failure is attributed wholly or partly to an officer failing to meet their section 27 duty, the officer may be found guilty of an offence, separately from the business.
Note: A completed self-assessment is not itself evidence of due diligence. It shows you where the gaps are. Closing and documenting them is the part that counts.
Access the resources
- Officer Due Diligence Self-Assessment tool
- Officer due diligence quick reference guide (PDF)
- SafeWork NSW due diligence guidance
How Actevate can help
The self-assessment will tell you where your gaps are. It will not close them. That is the work we do with officers and executive teams.
- Psychosocial risk gap assessment. We assess your current systems against the enforceable code and give you a documented position on where you stand and what to fix first.
- Officer and leadership capability. Our mental health training builds the capability step one asks for, giving leaders the skills to recognise psychosocial hazards and respond early.
- Evidence you can point to. We help you build the consultation records, risk registers and review cycles that make step six defensible.
If you have completed the self-assessment and want to talk through the result, call 1300 663 155 or get in touch.
This article summarises SafeWork NSW guidance current as at August 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Officer obligations depend on your role and circumstances. For advice on your specific position, speak to Actevate or a qualified legal practitioner.
