This information is designed to help WA organisations and their associated workforces (including volunteers) understand the work health and safety laws.
A work health and safety (WHS) service provider is a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) that provides work health and safety services to another business or undertaking.
What is a WHS service?
Any services that relate to work health and safety including any products or things provided as part of those services. A WHS service involves an activity that assists or enhances the ability of another PCBU to meet their WHS duties.
To be considered a WHS service, the activity will have all of the following characteristics:
- it must relate to work health and safety
- it must be intended to address the elimination of a hazard or control of a risk
- it is provided by a PCBU (the WHS service provider) to another PCBU (the recipient)
- it is provided in relation to a specific workplace or workplaces.
The WHS service could be providing any of the following that relate to work health and safety:
- recommendations or other advice
- testing or analysis
- information or documents including a report, plan, programme, strategy, guideline or manual
- training or other educational course.
For a WHS service to be provided there must be an agreement between the WHS service provider and the recipient. This can be verbal or written. A written contractual arrangement between the WHS service provider and the WHS service recipient may assist in determining the precise parameters of the WHS service, and the relevant use to which it is intended to be applied.
What are the duties of WHS service providers under the WHS Act?
WHS service providers must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the services they provide in relation to a workplace will not put the health and safety of people at that workplace at risk. The duty applies only to services that could potentially pose a risk in the workplace and will most commonly apply to WHS services provided to a PCBU and tailored to the circumstances of a particular workplace.
If the WHS service is incorrectly used or not used for its intended purpose by the recipient of the services (in other words, the service is not applied to its ‘relevant use’), the WHS service provider cannot be held responsible.
While it will depend on the circumstances, it is unlikely that general advice or training could be considered a WHS service.
Note: The provision of a WHS service does not relieve a PCBU of their duties under the WHS Act.
For further information on WHS service providers, read the Duty of persons conducting business or undertakings that provide services relating to work health and safety: interpretive guideline. This interpretive guideline sets out the duties of persons who may be a PCBU under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020.