When we talk to people that don’t have a background in transport operations we often see them being confused with the meaning of the Chain of Responsibility (CoR) term. As a result they focus their business resources in the wrong direction. 

‍

Under the current Heavy Vehicle National Law, Primary Duty (just like Work Health and Safety laws) is the CoR principle. The change since 2018 is that you will only be accountable for the activities that you manage and control (rather than be accountable if other parties break the law).

‍

The previous CoR regime was around for a long time and a lot of training and information that is available is based on the old HVNL requirements so making the paradigm shift can be a challenge.

‍

Person Conducting a Transport Activity (PCTA)

Does your business report on CoR breaches?  Does it report the same way on PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) breaches? 

‍

Rather than looking for CoR breaches it may be more helpful to think of CoR breach as PCTA (Person Conducting a Transport Activity) breach. In this case it  would mean that one did not do what was reasonably practical to ensure the safety of their actions towards the vehicle.

‍

If you look at the primary duty obligations of Work Health and Safety (WHS) and the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) you will see that they are very similar, except that the safety duty obligations of the HVNL apply to named “parties in the chain of responsibility”.

‍

Where does the confusion come from?

We believe that a large part of the confusion comes from material that was published by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) in early 2017, the material was the first of its kind and really helped the industry understand their pre 2018 obligations.

‍

The materials were used by training providers and industry consultants to develop operating systems / manuals and training materials often using the information verbatim.

‍

We still see the 2017 materials being used in Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and training material today - no wonder the Safety Management System (SMS) message gets lost along the way.

‍

What to look out for

You will see that the NHVR’s Safety Management System  materials are blue:

‍

‍

If you see yellow CoR materials these are out of date and are often the source of the confusion: 

‍

‍

If your management systems or training materials (particularly for those not operating heavy vehicles) say that your responsibility is to “ensure” something such as:

‍

Loading manager/loader/packer responsibilities are to ensure vehicle loading/unloading does not cause delays and advise drivers of any delays of more than 30 minutes.

‍

This is a red flag that you need to revise your training and your management systems.

‍