All, my company has included the Corporate HSE Department in it's management system scope. My department is audited to some elements of the MS including Legal & Other Requirements. We're told that we must define the L&OR's which are applicable to Corporate HSE. My opinion is there are NO L&OR's applicable to Corporate HSE who simply provide site oversight and auditing. Corporate HSE conducts no activities in which there are any L&OR's we found applicable. What is your opinion of listing items such as "OSHA" or "EPA" being applicable to Corporate HSE?
There is no opinion when it comes to legal requirements. In the US, OSHA, EPA, etc. regulations must be followed by
all persons working on behalf of employers, as applicable. On the other hand, identification of legal requirements in OHSAS 18001 only applies to identified hazards, so your best bet is to limit your identification of legal requirements only to
those hazards. I suspect this most likely affects more areas that just your corporate HSE department, and my advice here is to have a sound methodology for identifying hazards across the board (that are consistent with your policy), identifying the legal requirements that apply to those hazards, and determining the risk levels of said hazards.
The same advice will also be useful for environmental aspects (ISO 14001) in regards to the above.
Yes we are in the US. Yes I agree those OSHA requirements are standards that the EMPLOYER must meet. The HSE Department is not an employer. We are part of the company as is all other employees. Even if these specific standards are applicable to Corporate HSE, it changes nothing. We'll have not Objectives & Targets, Actions, planning, or training for which we are directly responsible or complete. The Employer (HR/Leadership) completes these. Maybe I'm off base?
I would be careful with some of these statements. Your employer definitely has the power to delegate responsibility for ensuring OSHA regulation compliance to a department such as yours. Even if a violation occurs or a citation is issued by OSHA inspectors and the employer ate the costs (which is almost always the case), other repercussions would most likely trickle down the food chain. Your department's title implies that it is responsible for the overall compliance of HSE (correct me if I am wrong), because if your department has anything to do with setting O&T's, planning or training for any other departments and they fail to meet OHSAS 18001 requirements, you could still be in trouble come audit time by way of proxy.
Brian
