TA-DL-12 · Drainlaying
Confined Space Work Task Analysis
Entry into and work within sewer maintenance holes, stormwater pits, chambers, tanks and large drains under a documented entry permit - identification, isolation, atmospheric testing, standby and rescue.
What you get
One editable Word document covering confined space work for Drainlaying: the task broken into steps, the hazards at each step, the controls, and a 5 by 5 risk matrix with residual ratings. Site fields and a crew sign-on are built in.
A Task Analysis is also known as a JSA (Job Safety Analysis) or JSEA. It covers each step of the job, the hazards and the controls.
The steps and hazards it covers
| Step | Hazards |
|---|---|
| Plan, prepare and confirm competency | Workers without the required training, competence or authorisation performing the task - incidents arising from lack of skill, competency or authorityDefective or unsafe plant, powered equipment, leads or attachments failing in useFull-body harness, lanyard or anchor failure; untrained use of fall-protection or height-access equipment |
| Identifying the confined space and planning entry | Treating a confined space as routine work - multiple fatal hazards |
| Entry permit and authorisation | Unauthorised or uncontrolled entry |
| Isolation of services and inflows | Engulfment by liquids or solids, energisation, or flooding of the space |
| Atmospheric testing before entry | Oxygen deficiency or enrichment, toxic (hydrogen sulphide, carbon monoxide) or flammable atmosphere |
| Ventilation and ongoing monitoring | Atmosphere deteriorating during the work |
| Standby person and communications | Entrant collapse unnoticed - no rescue trigger |
| Entry, egress and retrieval equipment | Entrapment; inability to retrieve an incapacitated entrant |
| The task within the space | Task hazards amplified in the space (fumes, hot work, electrical) |
| Rescue plan and equipment | Rescuer death - untrained would-be rescuers are killed entering to help |
| Exit and close-out | Person left in the space; space left open to the public |
Each hazard comes with its control measures, an initial and residual risk rating and the person responsible, ready to check against your job.
How to use it
Read it against the actual job. Delete the hazards that are not there, add the ones that are, fill the site fields, then brief the crew and get every name on the sign-on. A document nobody has read is a piece of paper. One the crew helped finish supports worker consultation and records the agreed work method. Engagement under HSWA ss58 to 59 is an ongoing process of seeking and considering workers’ views, so the signed page is evidence of part of it rather than the whole duty.
About Drainlaying Task Analysis
This is one of the Task Analysis documents written for Drainlaying crews. The trade covers trench excavation and shoring, foul and stormwater, connections, chambers and confined spaces, reinstatement.
See every Drainlaying document, or the whole pack for $199.99. Need 5 or more templates from this trade? The pack costs less than buying them individually, and saves $49.96 at 5.
Where it sits in the law
New Zealand does not require a document of this name. The duty is to manage risk so far as is reasonably practicable (HSWA s36) and to engage workers on it (ss58 to 59). Use a Task Analysis to plan the work, identify the hazards and communicate the controls to your crew. That is also how you evidence both duties.
WorkSafe names “a task analysis, safe work method statement (SWMS), job safety analysis or equivalent planning document” as the same thing done under different headings, and Site Safe titles one of its own SSSP forms “Task Analysis (TA) and Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS)”. So if the paperwork you have been sent asks for a TA, a SWMS or a JSA, this is the document it means, written to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Only the name changes; the hazards, controls and ratings are the same either way.
Where this sits in your SSSP
A Site-Specific Safety Plan (SSSP) covers the whole job: who is on site, how hazards get reported, what happens in an emergency. A Task Analysis covers one task inside it. They are not the same document. Site Safe’s SSSP pack runs to ten forms, and the Task Analysis is Form 10, filed behind the plan itself.
So a main contractor who asks which SSSP pack you are using, and then asks for a TA covering confined space work, has asked you for two separate things. This is the second one. Keep it with your SSSP for the job and bring it to the pre-start briefing, because the value is in the crew having read it before the work starts.
Same task, other trades
This task exists in other trades too, and each edition is written for that crew. Compare all 6, or go straight to Civil & Earthworks, Demolition & Strip-out, Electrical.