Rep training slashed

Health and safety representative training will almost halve this financial year due to Government funding cuts.

In a DoL discussion paper, released under the Official Information Act, it is revealed that about 4000 fewer H&S training places will be filled in the 2009/10 year, than if the places were not restricted due to ACC funding caps.

The Workplace Health and Safety Council last year asked for a report to be prepared as it sought feedback to inform the development of a policy paper on health and safety representative training.

 The paper was provided to the council from Jim Murphy, DoL manager workplace health and safety policy, and outlined possible future funding options.

It said over 95 percent of H&S representative training courses were provided by three main providers – the CTU, Business NZ, and Impac. Since 2003 over 40,000 people have attended the courses.

ACC had meanwhile reported that because its injury prevention budget for the 2009/10 financial year had been significantly reduced, its funds for H&S representative training had been cut by 44 percent. That meant instead of allocating funding to train 9500 H&S representative, it would allocate funding for just 4000.

Of this the CTU would train 2000 reps (down from 6000) and Business NZ and Impac would train 1000 representatives each (down from 2000 and 1500 respectively).

A further restriction was that the provider must deliver 70 percent of the training within ACC’s designated Safer Industry sectors, and at least 45 percent focus on stage 2 workshops irrespective of sector.

Based on past uptakes the DoL anticipated that the capping of ACC funding, and subsequent reduction of that funding, would mean a gap between the supply of funded places and expected demand of them. It estimated that the shortfall for the 2009/10 year that could be just over 6000 training places

The paper also noted that funding from the DoL for H&S representative training was also down from earlier levels. Through the Employment Relations Education (ERE) fund, the DoL had funded around 1400 training places per annum, but anticipated for 2009/10 it would fund just over 800 places (a significant increase on 2008/09 but well short of earlier levels).

The discussion paper said in reaction to the ACC funding cuts, the Minister of Labour had approved a change in priorities for the ERE Fund so that it could support a greater level of H&S training. But for the 2009/10 year most of the $2 million annual budget was already committed to projects approved in previous funding rounds, with only about half a million available for the training.

In summary the paper said that free training places would not be available to all H&S representatives who sought them. “With the HSE Act silent on who should pay for the training, some employers may be reluctant to pay for it.”

The paper said international evidence suggested that training H&S representatives led to improved awareness of H&S issues in the workplace, along with a reduced number or better managed hazards, and lower costs for workers compensation.

However the paper also referred to an evaluation commissioned by ACC which found no evidence of a link between H&S representative training and reduced injury rates.

The paper presented four options – do nothing, reconfigure ACC funding as a subsidy, explore other delivery mechanisms like online and employer-provided training, and ending all Government funding.

The WHSC has not supported the first and last options and thought a combination of the remaining two worthy of more exploration. It added that another option of increasing Government funding should not be discounted. The council is seeking further reports and consultation before preparing policy advice to the minister.

This story appeared in Safeguard Update newsletter of 6 April 2010.

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