Health and Safety Audits

A health and safety audit is a systematic examination of how your business manages occupational health and safety, measured against the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the regulations that apply to your industry. It tells you, specifically, where you fall short and what to do about it.

It is not the same thing as compiling a safety file. A file is the documentation itself. An audit is an independent assessment of whether your documentation, your appointments and your day-to-day practice actually meet the standard — and it is usually the right starting point when you already have something in place but don't trust it.

SECTION 01What a safety audit covers

Our audits examine six areas. Each produces findings, and each finding comes with a specific corrective action rather than a general observation.

• Legal appointments — whether the appointments required by the Act exist in writing, are signed, and name people who are still employed and still competent
• Risk management — whether risk assessments describe the work actually performed, whether controls are in place, and whether they have been communicated
• Documentation and records — the completeness and currency of registers, procedures, training records and certificates
• Physical workplace — a walk-through against the documentation, because a file that doesn't match the site fails on the day
• Emergency preparedness — evacuation planning, drill records, equipment and contact lists
• Contractor management — Section 37(2) agreements, vetting and site access control where you appoint others

SECTION 02What you receive

The deliverable is a written report you can act on:

• A findings register listing every non-conformance, with the legal reference it relates to
• A corrective action plan, prioritised by risk and by how quickly a finding could stop your work
• A compliance rating giving you a defensible picture of where you stand
• Evidence of the audit itself — which is a record in your file, and one an inspector will read favourably

Where the audit finds gaps we can also compile the missing documentation, though that is a separate piece of work and we will say so rather than bundling it silently.

SECTION 03Pre-inspection readiness checks

A readiness check is a narrower, faster version of a full audit, aimed at businesses expecting a visit. It verifies that the documents an inspector asks for first are present, current and accessible, and that someone on site can speak to them.

Inspectors from the Department of Employment and Labour arrive unannounced, and they arrive as part of planned programmes as well as in response to complaints. If a client has mentioned an upcoming inspection, or a neighbouring business has been visited, a readiness check is worth doing that week.

SECTION 04Client and vendor audits

Increasingly the audit you need to pass isn't the regulator's. Main contractors, mine operators and large corporate clients run their own supplier vetting, often annually, and their standards typically exceed the legislative minimum.

We audit against the client's specification as well as the Act, so you know whether you will pass before the vendor audit happens rather than afterwards. For contractors, failing a client audit is usually more expensive than any penalty a regulator would impose.

SECTION 05How it works

Scope

We start with a conversation about what you do, where, with what plant and how many people — plus any client specification you have to meet. That determines the audit's scope.

Audit

We work through your documentation and, where the site warrants it, walk the workplace. Typical turnaround is one to five business days depending on scale.

Report and close-out

You receive the findings register and corrective action plan. Where you want it, we help close the findings out — compiling missing documentation, drafting appointments, or building the registers that should have been running.

SECTION 06Who we audit

We audit across construction, manufacturing, mining and mining services, warehousing, logistics and fleet, agriculture, retail and corporate workplaces. The audit is built around your industry rather than run off a universal checklist, because a warehouse racking register is irrelevant on a farm and a fall protection plan is irrelevant in an office.

We work nationally, with concentrations across Gauteng, the platinum belt, the Mpumalanga coalfields and the Eastern Limb.

NEXT STEPSBooking an audit

Tell us your industry, your site, and whether anything is driving the timeline — an inspection, a client audit, a tender deadline. A compliance specialist will call you back within one business day to confirm scope and cost.