10.1 Continual improvement
The draft consolidates the 2018 10.1 General and 10.3 Continual improvement into a single 10.1. The public summaries report reduced text and an unchanged intent, with continual improvement now sitting in one place.
In the 2018 edition, 10.1 General introduced the improvement duty and 10.3 set out continual improvement in more detail. The draft merges them. The effect is a shorter clause, not a lower expectation.
The merged clause still expects the organization to improve the suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the system, to raise OH&S performance, to support a culture that helps the system, to involve workers in improvement actions and to tell them the results. The evidence an auditor asks for is the same: an improvement with a measured effect and a worker who took part.
The numbering matters for documents and training. Any reference to 10.3 will be wrong after the revision, and any improvement register that only collects audit findings will look thin against the merged clause.
What an auditor is likely to ask for
- An improvement register fed by audits, management review, incidents and performance data
- At least one improvement that no finding required, with its measured effect
- Evidence of worker participation in the improvement action
- Records that the result was communicated to workers and their representatives
These are the records this site expects a reader to hold for the new duty. They are our reading, not draft text, and they will be checked against the published standard when it exists.
Where it commonly fails today
- Improvement is limited to closing findings
- No measure of the effect of an improvement
- Workers never hear what changed
What to do now, while it is still a draft
Do not rebuild the system around a draft. Do the work that will be right under either edition: name the owner, write the process, keep the record, and put the clause reference on a list to update at publication. If the published text differs, the process survives the wording change.
Read the 2018 requirement it comes from Back to the clause map
Source for draft clause 10.1: the public DIS contents for the clause title, and the named certification-body summaries for the reported direction. The draft requirement text is not public and is not reproduced. Every source.