This injury prevention programme is designed to help employers with poor injury statistics improve the safety of their workplace. ACC levies are set on an industry basis. This means that employers in the same industry pay the similar rates. It also means that if one employer within an industry sector has a very high number of workplace injuries, the costs of those injuries are carried by all of the employers in that industry. Experience shows us that the some employers keep having injuries in their workplaces year after year.
How the programme works
An ACC WorkPlace Safety Evaluation is a five-step process that allows ACC to find out what is going wrong and do something about it.
Step 1 – Identifying
We use claims data to identify employers who have consistently had more injuries, or more severe injuries, than other employers of a comparable size within the same industry.
Step 2 – Advising
We will outline our concerns in a letter to individual workplaces.
This will be followed by a telephone call from an ACC injury prevention consultant or account manager to set up a meeting with management.
At this meeting the employer’s claims record will be reviewed in relation to how it compares with other employers in the same industry.
If the employer feels the current situation is not accurately reflected in the claims data, they can supply additional information for ACC to take into account. Based on the information supplied, ACC may decide to proceed no further.
Step 3 – Working together to find the answers
If we decide to pursue matters further, the injury prevention consultant will work with the employer to rectify the underlying causes of their workplace injuries.
ACC will provide free consulting advice to help:
- establish the causes of the most common serious injuries
- explore options for addressing the causes of the most serious injuries (including an assessment of the risk of harm and severity versus the cost and practicality)
- prepare an action plan for implementing chosen remedies, including a realistic timeframe.
Depending on the circumstances, the employer will have up to six months to take corrective actions.
At the end of the agreed timeframe the injury prevention consultant will prepare a report on actions taken by the employer. This report will help us decide what to do next.
Based on this information, ACC may decide to proceed no further. However, if we believe the employer is not making a concerted and genuine effort to address their injury problem, their workplace will be audited.
Workplace audits will be carried out as a last resort, only after all other courses of action have been exhausted.
Step 4 – Auditing the workplace
The workplace audit will focus on elements of hazard management, staff training and incident reporting that are most pertinent to the underlying causes of the employer’s workplace injuries.
We will appoint the auditor and nominate a timeframe in which the audit must be conducted. We will also pay the auditor’s fees and expenses.
Workplace audits typically take no more than half a day to complete.
The employer will receive a copy of the audit assessment framework prior to the audit.
When the audit has been completed the employer will receive written notification from ACC of the outcome (pass or fail) within 10 working days.
Step 5 – Levy adjustments
If an employer fails the workplace audit, legislation requires ACC to apply an upward levy adjustment.
The adjustment will be a 50% increase in the ACC WorkPlace Cover component of the employer’s annual ACC levy for the cover year in which the audit took place.
The upward levy adjustment stays in place until a further workplace audit is passed. Employers that fail a workplace audit will be re-audited in the following cover year (we will specify when). If the re-audit is passed, the levy adjustment for the year in which the re-audit is done will be refunded.
An upward levy adjustment may be applied if an employer refuses to allow the audit to take place or obstructs the conduct of the audit.
The right of review
Employers can ask for any ACC decision to be formally reviewed. To do this they must lodge the request within three months of being notified of the decision in question.
Requests to have a decision reviewed should be made in writing, preferably on the ACC33 Application for review (DOC 102K) form.
Last updated: 5 October 2010