Using contractors? What safety regulators in five countries expect you to check

Bringing in a contractor doesn’t move your health and safety duties to them. In the UK, Australia and New Zealand the regulators say so in almost the same words, and in the US and Canada the rules reach the business that hires or controls the work as well. Each one expects you to check that a contractor can do the job safely before it starts, and to keep checking while it runs. The documents you collect from contractors are the record of those checks.

This is general information to help you plan contractor checks, not legal advice. Health and safety law differs by country, state and province, and by industry; check the rules that apply where the work is done.

Can you hand safety responsibility to a contractor?

No. Each regulator puts it in its own terms:

Australia’s model work health and safety laws apply in every state and territory except Victoria, which has its own law, according to Safe Work Australia. In Canada, each province and territory has its own act; Ontario is one example.

What do regulators suggest you check before work starts?

The UK’s HSE guide lists questions to ask a contractor you are choosing. They include how the work will be managed and supervised, whether they will use subcontractors and how they check them, their recent health and safety performance, their qualifications and training, and, “if required”, whether they hold employers’ liability compulsory insurance. It notes that a written health and safety policy and written risk assessments are required by law only where five or more people are employed. Its advice is blunt: “Don’t assume someone is competent, check it yourself.”

New Zealand’s WorkSafe describes pre-qualifying contractors, and says “supporting documentation will need to be provided as evidence that good health and safety procedures are in place and are being carried out”. It also says not to choose a contractor on cost alone.

In the US, OSHA’s directive says how closely a controlling employer must check depends partly on how much it knows about the other employer’s “safety history and safety practices”. More frequent checks are normally needed for an employer with a history of non-compliance, and may be needed at the start of a project with an employer you have never worked with.

Which documents record those checks?

The checks become a set of documents you ask for, check and keep. Which ones apply depends on the work, the country and the contract, but most lists draw on these:

Keep the evidence with the decision. A note of who checked each document, when and what they accepted is what shows, later, that the check happened.

Why isn’t checking once enough?

Because both the work and the documents change. WorkSafe New Zealand lists monitoring as part of the duty to consult, cooperate and coordinate, including regular meetings, inspections and responding to incidents, and a review when the contract ends. OSHA ties how often a controlling employer must inspect to the scale and pace of the work and what it knows about the contractor.

Documents expire too. Australian Defence guidance notes that most insurances renew annually, licences and certificates carry their own expiry dates, and a risk assessment written for one job may not fit the next. A contractor who was fully checked at the start can be working on lapsed insurance a few months later if nobody asks for the renewal.

A checklist before a contractor starts

• Write down the job and its risks, and share them with the contractors you are considering.
• Ask how they will manage the work, whether they will use subcontractors and how they check them.
• Collect insurance evidence for each cover the job needs, and check who is insured, the cover, the limits and the dates.
• Check licences for the trade and for the workers doing licensed tasks.
• Ask for their health and safety policy, and the risk assessments and method statement for this job.
• Agree who manages which risk on a shared site, and record it.
• Record who checked each document and when, and plan to ask for each renewal before its expiry date.

How does Vendarity help?

Vendarity collects and tracks the documents. You set the requirements your contractors must meet, and category rules can assign them to every supplier in a category. Each contractor uploads through a private link, without an account; every file is scanned for malware; and a reviewer checks it and accepts it, with any minimum insurance limits and wording you need, such as an additional insured, recorded as part of the review. You then see what is missing, waiting for review or expiring, and a full history of who decided what.

It doesn’t judge a contractor’s safety competence, verify a licence with the body that issued it, or decide which documents the law requires. Those stay with your team, and Vendarity keeps the record of what they checked. See how it works.