What is an SSSP?

Start with the part nobody tells you: there is no law that requires a document called a Site-Specific Safety Plan, and no regulator definition of what goes in one. It is an industry convention, and knowing that changes how you should read a request for one.

What the law requires

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 sets duties, not documents. A PCBU must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers (s36). Where more than one PCBU has a duty over the same matter, they must consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other so far as is reasonably practicable (s34). And workers must be given reasonable opportunities to participate in improving health and safety on an ongoing basis (ss58 to 59).

Nothing there names a plan. What an SSSP does is evidence those duties for one site: who is working there, what the hazards are, how the parties coordinate, and what happens in an emergency.

Where the name comes from

Site Safe, a national not-for-profit membership organisation for the construction industry, publishes an SSSP pack that most New Zealand subcontractors will meet at some point. It is not a regulator and has no enforcement powers, but its pack has become the common shape, which is why a main contractor asking for “your SSSP” usually means something in that form.

Their pack runs to ten forms: a job registration, an agreement or project plan, a site and job hazard register, a hazardous substances inventory, a training and qualification register, a site inspection checklist, toolbox talk minutes, a site emergency response plan, an incident and injury register, an incident investigation, and a Task Analysis.

How the packs differ

Their three packs are split by contractual position, not by the size of the job: whether you hold the head contract with the client, whether you work under a main contractor’s agreement, or whether you run your own system alongside one. That is the question to answer first, because it decides which agreement sits at the front of the plan.

Where a Task Analysis fits

An SSSP covers the job. A Task Analysis covers one task inside it. In Site Safe’s pack the Task Analysis is Form 10 of ten, filed behind the plan.

So a main contractor who asks which SSSP pack you use, and then asks for a Task Analysis for the high risk work, has asked you for two separate things. The plan says how the site is run. The Task Analysis says how one job is done safely, step by step, and you need one for each task that carries serious risk.

This site sells the Task Analysis documents. Browse the catalogue or a trade pack. Site-Specific Safety Plan templates are in development.

What to do when you are asked for one

1. Ask which pack or format they want. Many main contractors have their own, and completing theirs is faster than arguing for yours.
2. Work out your contractual position. Head contract, subcontract, or your own system alongside theirs. It changes the agreement page.
3. Fill it for this site. A plan naming another job is the first thing a site manager notices.
4. Attach a Task Analysis for each high risk task, completed, briefed and signed.
5. Check the notifiable work question separately. Some work must be notified to WorkSafe 24 hours before it starts, and an SSSP does not do that for you. The ten categories.

Sources

• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, ss34, 36, 58 to 59.
• Site Safe New Zealand, SSSP packs and forms. Site Safe is a membership organisation, not a regulator, and we are not affiliated with it.

This guide summarises the position as at the review date above. It is not legal advice.