Overlapping duties: sharing a site with other businesses

When more than one business works on the same site, they do not divide the duty between them. Each one holds it in full, and section 34 requires them to consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other so far as is reasonably practicable. This is the provision that catches subcontractors who assume the main contractor is carrying the responsibility.

What overlapping duties means

Section 34 applies whenever two or more PCBUs have a duty in relation to the same matter. On a building site that is the normal case: the main contractor, the roofer, the electrician and the scaffolder all have duties about the same roof.

The duty is not shared in the sense of being split. The main contractor's duty is not reduced because the roofer has one too, and the roofer's is not reduced because the main contractor is in control of the site. Both are complete, and each is judged on what was reasonably practicable for that business to do.

A contract can allocate work, cost and risk between businesses. It cannot transfer a duty under the Act. Section 28 makes a term purporting to exclude or limit a duty of no effect.

Consult, cooperate, coordinate

Consult

Share what you know before the work. Your hazards, your method, the times you will be on site and what you need from others. If your work creates a hazard for another crew, saying so is the whole point.

Cooperate

Work with what the others have put in place rather than around it. Using the scaffold as installed, keeping to the agreed exclusion zone, not removing a handrail without telling the person who owns it.

Coordinate

Sequence and plan together so the activities do not create risk for each other. Two trades on the same roof at the same time is a coordination failure before it is anything else.

How it works on a real job

The site plan names who is on site and how they talk to each other. The task documents from each business say what each is doing and what hazards it creates. The pre-start briefing is where the overlap gets discussed, and a change of sequence is told to everyone it affects rather than only to the person who asked.

Where a main contractor runs inductions and a site plan, joining in is cooperation. Where nobody is doing it, the duty does not disappear: you still have to raise what you know with the people it affects.

Who is responsible when something goes wrong?

Potentially everyone with a duty in relation to that matter. The question is not who was nominated as responsible but what each business could reasonably practicably have done. A subcontractor who saw an unsafe arrangement, said nothing and worked anyway has a problem of their own, independent of whoever created it.

The influence and control a business has over the matter is relevant to what was reasonably practicable for it, which is why the main contractor's exposure is usually larger. Larger is not exclusive.

What to do about it

1. Ask who else will be on site and when, before you price the work if you can.
2. Send your task documents to whoever controls the site, and read theirs.
3. Raise anything your work does to other people, in writing, to the person who can act on it.
4. Attend the site briefings and put your own crew through them.
5. When the sequence changes, tell the trades the change affects, not just your own crew.
6. Keep a record. An email saying you raised the conflict is evidence; remembering that you mentioned it is not.

Sources

• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, s34 (duty to consult, cooperate and coordinate), s28 (no contracting out), s22 and s36
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, regs 5 to 8
• WorkSafe New Zealand, Overlapping duties, good practice guidance
• WorkSafe New Zealand, Introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, special guide

This guide is general information about New Zealand health and safety law as at the review date. It is not legal advice and it does not describe your site. Confirm what applies to you with WorkSafe New Zealand or your adviser.