INTRA™ ACTRAC
Legal Liability: Occupational Health and Safety Act
The sections of the OHS Act that carry personal liability, worked through one by one: employer and employee duties, the section 16 appointment, health and safety representatives, incident reporting, inspector powers and penalties.
Liability under the OHS Act does not stop at the company. It reaches the people holding the appointments. This programme works through South African health and safety law from the principles down to the individual sections, so the people carrying the duty know exactly what it says.
Why this programme matters
Most people who carry a health and safety appointment have never read the sections that make them personally liable. They have signed a letter of appointment and are relying on somebody else having checked what it commits them to.
That is a poor position to be in after an incident. The Act does not only bind the company. It reaches the chief executive officer, the people appointed under section 16, health and safety representatives and, in defined circumstances, individual employees. An inspector arriving after a serious incident works through those duties one at a time.
This programme is the cheapest way to close that gap across a management team. It is online and self-paced, so it does not need a room, a facilitator or a day off production, which matters when the people who most need it are the hardest to get into a classroom together.
What the programme covers
- Part 1: South African legal frameworks, vicarious liability and the terminology the Act uses
- Part 2: building a compliant health and safety management system, from organisational structure through hazard identification, controls, incident management and auditing to safety culture
- Part 3: the critical sections in detail, being 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17 to 20, 24, 25 and 37
- Part 3: employer duties, duties to third parties, manufacturer obligations and employee duties
- Part 3: the chief executive officer appointment, health and safety representatives and incident reporting
- Part 4: inspector powers, obstruction of an investigation, appeals, penalties and what has to be proved
What you will be able to do
- Understand your own legal responsibilities under the Act rather than the company's in the abstract
- Build a health and safety management system that stands up as legally compliant
Who it is for
Managers, safety officers, company executives, and South African employers and employees generally
How it is delivered
This is a self-paced online programme. Learners work through it at a time and place that suits them, on any device, so it does not take a shift off the roster. It carries the knowledge and awareness component only. Anything requiring practical demonstration is done face to face.
The programme is INTRA™ legal compliance material covering the OHS Act and its regulations. It is non-credit bearing, which means it is not a unit standard or a qualification. It is included in the INTRA™ PRIME licence.
ACTRAC questions
Anybody who holds an appointment or supervises people. In practice that means the section 16 appointees, line managers, safety officers and health and safety representatives. It is also useful for directors who want to understand what they have delegated.
No. It teaches what the Act requires and how the sections fit together, which is enough for day to day decisions. A specific dispute, incident or prosecution needs a lawyer.
No. INTRA legal compliance programmes are non-credit bearing. They are compliance and awareness training rather than a unit standard or a qualification, and we would rather say that plainly than let you assume otherwise.
It is self-paced, so it depends on the learner. Most people work through it in sittings rather than in one go, which suits shift patterns and management diaries.
Book INTRA™ ACTRAC e-learning
Send us the courses, the number of delegates and where you are. We come back with a written quote within one business day.