Progress against the McDougall and Audit Office review recommendations
Update on our progress against the McDougall and Audit Office review recommendations.
Last updated: 15 October 2025
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Overview
In response to the McDougall and Audit Office review recommendations, SafeWork NSW has undertaken an extensive program of work to address the recommendations and uplift its performance.
These reviews were critical in shaping a clear roadmap for improvement and strengthening our governance, capability and regulatory effectiveness.
Since their release, we have made significant progress – 28 of the McDougall review recommendations have been fully implemented and 18 are well progressed. Further, all 10 of the Audit Office review recommendations are now complete.
This update marks our first formal progress report and reflects the substantial work done to embed long-term, sustainable change across the agency.
McDougall review
The Hon Robert McDougall KC conducted an Independent Review of SafeWork NSW, making 46 recommendations for improvement in a report that was tabled in February 2024.
Progress has been made against all key focus areas of this review:
- Triage
- Investigation Decision Making Panel
- Training
- Structure and governance of SafeWork NSW
- SafeWork NSW's complaints function
- Workers, their representatives and families
Triage
On 1 July 2025, SafeWork launched a new triage model that makes significant improvements in how we handle incident reports and requests for service.
The new model formally closes all triage recommendations and introduces a streamlined, risk-based triage framework that supports timely, more consistent and better-informed decisions.
A key part of the model is a new, user-friendly dashboard that shows real-time information and supports decisions that align with our regulatory priorities.
The triage framework now includes formalised processes for review and oversight, with inspectors now directly involved in reviewing incident reports and requests for service to ensure decisions are thorough and consistent.
To make things simpler and more accurate, old and duplicate documents have been replaced with one clear and reliable source of triage information.
In addition, a tailored training package has been developed to meet the needs of triage teams, inspectors, and managers. This is supported by a revised decision-making flowchart aligned with the national triage model, ensuring decisions are consistent with best practice across the regulatory environment.
Investigation Decision Making Panel
The work to enhance SafeWork’s compliance decision-making has reached a significant milestone, with the closure of eight recommendations relating to the Investigation Decision Making Panel (IDMP).
The panel has now evolved into the Escalated Compliance Decision-Making Panel (ECDMP) to reflect its broader strategic focus, ensuring that our regulatory decisions are aligned with SafeWork’s annual priorities and risk-based enforcement framework.
The panel performs a critical role in ensuring SafeWork’s most serious matters, particularly those involving high risks of harm or repeat offenders, are considered with an added level of scrutiny.
To support the new panel, end-to-end procedures and templates have been introduced to ensure decision-making is consistent and transparent. Formal feedback loops have also been set up to keep referring inspectors and managers updated. The panel also includes a legal representative as a voting member, helping to strengthen the quality of its decisions. Together, these enhancements enable a more strategic use of our resources, allowing SafeWork to focus its investigations and enforcement actions where they will have the greatest impact.
The outstanding five recommendations related to this function are being delivered over the coming months, which include uplifting our psychosocial capability through onboarding a cohort of additional resources, a training package to embed capability and confidence across the business, and the first annual assurance check of the ECDMP’s decisions to ensure consistency and alignment with SafeWork’s regulatory priorities.
Training
Recommendations under the training theme focused on both our internal training programs and our role in supporting and overseeing training for authorised training providers.
Several recommendations have been closed, including those relating to triage training, where we introduced a tailored training package and revised decision-making flowcharts aligned to the national triage models.
Internally, SafeWork has strengthened its training for new inspectors through ongoing improvements such as improved processes for field visits, integrated assessments, and structured capability and development discussions. We have also commenced a full review of our new inspector training program.
In relation to external providers, we have commenced consultation with current providers for Health and Safety Representative (HSR) and Entry Permit Holder (EPH) training on proposed changes to training pathways. The feedback will help inform opportunities for improvement to training content.
Structure and governance of SafeWork NSW
On 1 July 2025, SafeWork became an independent regulator to be supported by an Advisory Council comprising of representatives from employer organisations, unions, a work health and safety (WHS) expert and a member with lived experience.
The Advisory Council remains under recruitment. Pending its appointment, SafeWork continues to consult with an Interim Tripartite Reference Group which was established in 2024 to perform a similar function.
These changes respond to the McDougall recommendations relating to SafeWork’s structure and governance, ensuring the agency is positioned to be a stronger, more modern and fit-for-purpose WHS regulator.
These recommendations were delivered by the Administrative Order (Administrative Changes—SafeWork NSW Agency) Order 2025 and the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Standalone Regulator) Act 2025.
SafeWork NSW's complaints function
SafeWork has closed eight recommendations relating to complaints by introducing a new case management system, ServiceNow, to track and manage complaints and grievances, along with updated policies and training that also focus on building leadership capability.
SafeWork has also established its own in-house People and Culture team as of 1 July 2025 to ensure continuous improvements in the way internal grievance matters and complaints are handled.
The outstanding recommendation to review complaints and grievance processes is currently underway. SafeWork is also finalising a new Complaint Management Framework, and additional roles are being added to the team to strengthen the complaints function.
Workers, their representatives and families
SafeWork has strengthened its relationship and collaboration with workers, their representatives, families and unions, with three of four recommendations now complete.
These efforts reflect a broader commitment to supporting those affected by workplace incidents along the regulatory pathway – from investigation to potential prosecution and through to enforceable undertakings.
Recognising the wide-reaching impacts of workplace incidents, we have embedded strategies designed to deliver consistent and meaningful support. These include implementing system updates and targeted training to support consistent engagement with Health and Safety Representatives, increased meetings and touchpoints with the Family and Injured Workers Support and Advisory Group (FIWSAG), and updates to the Enforceable Undertaking guidelines. The revised guidelines require a duty holder to consult within their workplaces when developing response strategies, with inspectors responsible for verifying compliance.
Complete list of McDougall recommendations
Recommendation | October 2025 status | |
| Triage | ||
|---|---|---|
1 | SafeWork should ensure triage documentation is more user friendly. | Complete |
2 | SafeWork should better embed its regulatory priorities into the triage process each year. | Complete |
3 | SafeWork should formalise the oversight and review of triage decisions, as well as responses to challenges and issues identified as part of that review and oversight process. | Complete |
4 | SafeWork should give careful consideration to consolidating the three groups involved in triage under one directorate. | Complete |
5 | SafeWork should formalise training to equip staff with the skills they need for effective triage. | Complete |
| IDMP | ||
6 | SafeWork should give consideration to establishing a policy that wherever possible, the membership of the IDMP should include at least one legal practitioner with relevant experience in the area of workplace health and safety law and in prosecutions for breach of obligations under that law. | Complete |
7 | SafeWork should simplify documentation supporting the IDMP process. | Complete |
8 | When the IDMP process documentation is reviewed by SafeWork in accordance with recommendation 7, SafeWork should ensure that that documentation directs the attention of staff preparing submissions to the IDMP to consider the strategic regulatory priorities established from time to time by SafeWork, and to state expressly how the submission supports (to the extent that it does) those priorities. | Complete |
9 | SafeWork should formalise the oversight and review of the IDMP decision-making process and improve the analysis of insights. | In progress |
10 | SafeWork should incorporate a greater strategic focus into the IDMP process. | Complete |
11 | SafeWork should develop tailored IDMP process training, including content with a specific focus on strategic decision-making. | In progress |
12 | SafeWork should improve communications with staff following decisions. | Complete |
13 | The legislature should give consideration to amending section 219 of the 2011 Act so that it provides that: (1) a person must not without reasonable excuse contravene, or fail to comply with or perform, a provision of a WHS undertaking; and (2) the person alleging the existence of a reasonable excuse must prove it on the balance of probabilities. | Complete |
14 | When recommendation 9 is put into practice, SafeWork should institute a formal process to use the data collected to enable, among other things, a regular and continuing sampling of IDMP decisions for the purpose of re-examining the decision reached on each of the selected files to evaluate its correctness at the time it was made, and to see if there were alternative decisions that could be and should have been made on the evidence originally available to the IDMP. | In progress |
15 | SafeWork should train more of its inspectors specifically in dealing with psychosocial hazards, or alternatively, employ additional personnel to be trained as inspectors with specific training in dealing with psychosocial hazards. | In progress |
16 | SafeWork should work with employer groups, unions and HSRs in individual industries to create industry forums whose role is to identify psychosocial hazards in the relevant industry, to educate a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) and workers about those hazards, and to develop and implement strategies to minimise them. | In progress |
17 | SafeWork should establish a system to enable SafeWork to have access to claims data held by workers insurance insurers for the purpose of identifying at risk industries, PCBUs and workers and targeting programs of education and inspection accordingly. | Complete |
18 | To the extent that there may be legislative prohibitions or restrictions that would prevent or inhibit that access, the legislature should give consideration to enacting legislation to remove any such prohibitions and restrictions. | Complete |
| Training | ||
19 | SafeWork should seek to achieve greater consistency in mentoring and field work opportunities. | In progress |
20 | SafeWork should continue to focus on the workforce planning required to enable the best possible teaching and learning experience. | In progress |
21 | SafeWork RTO should review its assessment attempt approach to ensure it continues to meet good practice. | In progress |
22 | SafeWork should fully implement a framework to assess the impact and outcomes the New Inspector Training Program (NITP) is delivering and for sustaining organisational capability over time. | In progress |
23 | SafeWork should institute formal assessment for HSR training participants. | In progress |
24 | SafeWork should update EPH training to reflect more contemporary training practices. | In progress |
25 | SafeWork’s approval process for providers of EPH and HSR training should continue to be more focused on review and continuous improvement process. | In progress |
26 | SafeWork should increase current oversight resources and consider an expansion to supervising student outcomes over time. | In progress |
27 | SafeWork should prepare formal triage training materials by SafeWork and then regularly refreshed. | Complete |
28 | SafeWork should administer simple triage skills assessments for new starters post training and for existing staff before they deliver training. | Complete |
29 | SafeWork should give consideration to instituting a formal process of assigning new inspectors to work, for a period of three to six months, in pairs with existing and experienced inspectors when performing those aspects of an inspector’s functions that involve dealing with PCBUs over complaints and notifications, and their investigation. | In progress |
30 | SafeWork should review all its educational functions, both internal and external, with a view to identifying and utilising the best possible combination of theoretical and practical learning, and that FIWSAG or some equivalent body should be enlisted, assuming its continuing willingness to do so, to have input into both the design and the delivery of internal and external training. That review should extend to a consideration of the desirability and content of on-the-job training, or continuing education, for all staff whose roles involve dealing with PCBUs, workers, unions, HSRs and members of the public in connection with complaints, referrals, requests for service, investigations, and prosecutions. | In progress |
31 | When SafeWork reviews its educational functions, it should ensure that the review extends to the content and delivery of training (including continuing education) of its Customer Service Centre (or Advisory Service) Staff. | In progress |
| Structure and governance of SafeWork NSW | ||
32 | SafeWork should be established as a statutory corporation, an example of this structure being the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) constituted under the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991 (NSW) (PEA Act). | Complete |
33 | SafeWork should be governed by a board comprising representatives of employer and employee organisations with demonstrated interest and expertise in the field of workplace health and safety. The board should also include at least one person who works and is expert in the field of workplace health and safety, and a representative from an organisation such as FIWSAG. | Complete |
| SafeWork NSW's complaints function | ||
34 | SafeWork should update the Positive and Productive Workplace Policy and accompanying intranet material. | Complete |
35 | SafeWork should invest in new processes and supports to ensure accessibility of complaints process for all SafeWork employees. | Complete |
36 | SafeWork should better track delivery times for complaints and grievance issues. | Complete |
37 | SafeWork should expand training for managers to identify and support the resolution of workplace grievances. | Complete |
38 | SafeWork should consider clarifying how confidentiality is maintained and balanced against effective investigation of issues. | Complete |
39 | SafeWork should revise triaging tool to support more consistent decision-making to determine the appropriate pathway for complaint resolution. | Complete |
40 | SafeWork should ensure record keeping and oversight is systematised, and automated where appropriate. | Complete |
41 | SafeWork should ensure greater consistency and support in the complaints and grievance handling work performed by the People and Culture team on behalf of SafeWork NSW. | Complete |
42 | Within a period of 9 to 12 months from the delivery of this Report and its publication, SafeWork should undertake a further review of the complaints and grievance handling processes of SafeWork to identify whether the deficiencies in those processes identified in the Nous report have been rectified, and whether the complaints handling function has improved both as to efficiency and as to correctness and consistency of outcomes. | In progress |
| Workers, their representatives and families | ||
43 | SafeWork should, when restructured, formalise and continue the process of regular meetings with FIWSAG, at least quarterly and more often as circumstances require. | In progress |
44 | When investigating a workplace incident and considering what action to take, SafeWork should wherever possible make contact with HSRs of the workforce of the PCBU at the location of the incident, and seek their input both as to evidence that may be available of an unsafe system of work and (where enforceable undertakings (EUs) are being considered) as to the precise terms of the EUs that may be negotiated with the PCBU. | Complete |
45 | SafeWork should develop, formalise and follow a procedure requiring it, when a workplace incident has resulted in the death of or serious injury to a worker: (a) to advise the family of that worker, and where applicable the injured worker, of the steps to be followed in the investigation of the incident; (b) to keep the family and the worker informed of progress of the investigation; (c) to inform the family and worker if a prosecution is to be taken and, if it is, to keep them informed of the progress and outcome of that prosecution; (d) to inform the family and worker, if a prosecution is not to be undertaken, of the reasons for that decision; (e) to consult the family and worker as to the terms of any EU that the PCBU may request and SafeWork may decide to consider; and (f) to offer the family and worker the opportunity to have input into the precise terms of that EU. | Complete |
46 | Where a worker who is killed or seriously injured in a workplace incident is to the knowledge of SafeWork a member of a trade union, SafeWork should take, with all appropriate changes, steps in accordance with (a) to (f) at recommendation [45] above to inform and keep informed the relevant officials of that trade union of the progress and outcome of the investigation. | Complete |
Audit Office of NSW performance report
The Audit Office performance report into the “Effectiveness of SafeWork NSW in exercising its compliance functions” was tabled in Parliament on 27 February 2024.
Since then, SafeWork has undertaken extensive work to respond to the recommendations. The final recommendation relating to the strategy to replace the IT system, Workplace Services Management System (WSMS), and prepare the associated WSMS Business Case, was finalised in August 2025.
Actions taken
Key work undertaken to address the recommendations includes:
- ICAC completed its investigation into the procurement of the research partner for the real-time silica detection device and referred the matter back to the Department of Customer Service for action. No further comment can be made on the content of ICAC’s report due to secrecy provisions of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988.
- Developed a Business Accountability Framework to track performance metrics that align with SafeWork’s strategic and operational goals, ensuring outcomes are measurable and accountable.
- Released an Annual Regulatory Statement outlining key priorities for attention and reform, developed in consultation with internal and external stakeholders. A formal process has been established to evaluate the outcomes of the regulatory priorities and to review and reset these each year to consider changes in the operating environment.
- Introduced new published Regulatory Priorities to focus SafeWork’s compliance and enforcement efforts on high-risk work activities and emerging harms.
- Delivered the SafeWork Strategic Plan 2024-29 in October 2024, a five-year roadmap that guides the agency’s regulatory and enforcement planning and approaches.
- Developed a formalised data governance framework for the use of data from the IT system, WSMS, and identified a data custodian for this system.
- Developed a strategy to replace WSMS, with a Business Case prepared in consultation with NSW Treasury.
- Conducted an audit of a sample of SafeWork procurement processes and developed an action plan to implement the resulting recommendations. SafeWork has also centralised procurement support in its new organisational structure to strengthen compliance.
- Embedded and operationalised more robust risk management practices across the organisation, including reviewing the risk culture and Risk Management Framework and implemented a policy.
- Reviewed policies, procedures and practices and developed an associated quality audit program to ensure quality and consistent regulatory decision-making.
Complete list of Audit Office recommendations
Recommendation | October 2025 status | |
|---|---|---|
1 | Ensure that an independent investigation into the procurement of the research partner for the real-time silica detection device is completed to identify whether the project was affected by maladministration, fraudulent activity, or misconduct. | Complete |
2 | Develop and implement a formal accountability framework that consolidates, assesses and reports on its funding, spending, activities, performance against KPIs and achieved outcomes. | Complete |
3 | Embed a formal process to: a) set annual regulatory priorities, including evidence gathering and data analysis b) consult with internal and external stakeholders to identify and validate potential regulatory priorities c) evaluate the outcomes of yearly regulatory priorities. | Complete |
4 | Publish a consolidated report of progress against regulatory priorities and key metrics on the SafeWork NSW website. | Complete |
5 | Undertake strategic planning and define a set of long-term priorities as the base for making investment decisions in the organisation, including workforce planning and technology uplift. | Complete |
6 | Develop a formalised data governance process for the use of WSMS data and identify the data custodian for WSMS. | Complete |
7 | Resolve key limitations currently experienced with WSMS including by: a) clearly setting out a strategy, including preferred timing, and detailed technical design for a replacement system. b) in consultation with NSW Treasury, preparing a business case for system replacement, including a robust assessment of costs, benefits and risks. | Complete |
8 | Review a randomly selected sample of procurement processes to identify common procurement failings and any systemic issues which have facilitated these. | Complete |
9 | Ensure effective management of internal and external risks by: a) reviewing risk culture and risk management framework b) implementing clear protocols for the escalation of risk. | Complete |
10 | Review policies, procedures and practices to ensure the quality and consistency of regulatory decision making across directorates. | Complete |