Governance Review and Advice Services for SafeWork
Governance Framework Review and Improvement
Grosvenor partnered with SafeWork SA to independently review and strengthen governance frameworks, policies, audit, risk, document management and committee effectiveness. This engagement delivered practical recommendations that enhanced accountability, compliance, governance capability and long-term organisational performance. In particular, Governance Framework Review Services were critical for effective improvement.
Situation
SafeWork South Australia (SWSA) is the lead agency responsible for ensuring the safety, health, and welfare of workers in South Australia. Established under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012, SafeWork SA plays a crucial role in promoting and enforcing workplace safety standards. It conducts inspections, provides guidance to employers, and responds to incidents or complaints related to work safety.
As part of maintaining high standards, engaging Governance Framework Review Services is an important step for organisations to evaluate and strengthen their governance structures. Over the years, SafeWork SA has demonstrated its commitment to enhancing workplace safety in South Australia. However, as with any organisation, it is essential to periodically review, evaluate, and improve governance arrangements and culture. This ensures they remain effective, efficient, and aligned with evolving best practices.
Task
Grosvenor was engaged to provide advice, assistance and support for the review and strengthening of governance at SafeWork SA. This included independent review and making recommendations about the strategies, policies and governance of five critical systems within the SWSA. By delivering Governance Framework Review Services, the project ensured robust governance outcomes.
Action
Grosvenor undertook a detailed independent review of the following systems, tools, processes and practices:
- SWSA Governance Framework, including legislative instruments and external governance sources
- SWSA Policy Governance, including documentation control for all frameworks, strategies, policies, procedures, work instructions and guidelines
- SWSA Audit Framework, including better practice audit planning
- SWSA Governance, Audit and Risk Committee, including performance of the committee in effectively discharging their duties under the Terms of Reference, and the capability requirements for members
- SWSA Document Management, including better practice document hierarchy, templates and processes for review and redevelopment of all controlled documents
Result
The strategies, policies and governance of each system, tool, or process were reviewed as part of our engagement, and as such recommendations were made about:
- Business ownership, roles, responsibilities, accountabilities
- Decision-making protocols. processes and authorities including delegations, CEIs, AAIs etc
- Assurance and compliance with government direction, laws and better practices
- Reporting and escalation of breaches with governance arrangements
- Controlled document hierarchy
- Systems and tools for the management of controlled and uncontrolled governance materials, procedures and processes
- Alignment of effort and investments across frameworks
- Performance monitoring and identifying/reporting on key strategic measures
- Managing risk and integrity
- Leadership behaviours and commitment
- Change management planning, including the drivers, barriers and activities for improvement to governance, risk and audit
- Transformation and transition strategies
- Future state roadmaps and implementation planning
- Capability uplift priorities
- Executive coaching and governance training
All recommendations made were accepted by the Executive Committee and the Manager – Governance. Notably, engagement with Governance Framework Review Services has solidified SafeWork SA’s commitment to best practice governance.
Ethical behaviour used:
Through our engagement Grosvenor upheld ethical standards and probity principles. Grosvenor worked very closely with the SWSA internal project team and stakeholders, as well as Executive. This was to ensure compliance with rules, regulations, laws, policies and external expectations. Also, we ensured that transparency, ethics and integrity were at the heart of our understanding of all systems, tools and processes we were reviewing. Grosvenor has a published ethics policy and social responsibility policy. Our management system is triple certified to ISO standards of quality, safety and environment. Every element of our engagement with SWSA was subject to our ethics policy and social responsibility policy. Furthermore, all work was subject to the requirements of our project quality procedures within our management system.
Sustainability considerations:
Our sustainability considerations for this engagement focussed on ‘build once, use many’ principles, and included ensuring the longevity and sustainability of the work within SWSA long after our engagement comes to an end. This includes the deliberate, scheduled capability uplift of SWSA staff members through training and coaching, the industrialisation of our methodologies for re-use within SWSA for other systems and tools, and the investment in lessons management after each element of the review to ensure ongoing improvement across SWSA practices. In addition to this, every element of our engagement with SWSA was subject to our ethics policy, social responsibility policy, and the requirements of our project quality procedures within our management system.
Post-engagement:
Following on from our view of the Policy Framework as well as our Audit of the Risk, Audit and Governance Frameworks within SafeWork SA, Grosvenor was appointed as a governance training and coaching partner for emerging leaders in the Governance Team. In particular we worked closely with the manager of Governance, the Document Controller, and the Deputy Document Controller for the agency. As part of our work we provided small group training sessions about quality, governance and controlled document practices. We co-developed a new suite of controlled document templates for Policies, Procedures, Frameworks, Work Instructions and Strategic Frameworks. We also developed the procedures that govern the management of controlled documents and use of the templates. A transition roadmap was developed and a program put in place to transition over 500 controlled documents to the new templates and control arrangements. One-on-one coaching and mentoring was provided to individuals in the team to support the transition plan.
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Start a conversation with Charitee Davies, Governance Lead