Page 98 - Best Practice for Construction Projects

Guidance for safe systems of work

• SPA’s must be developed at the place of work by the crew
involved in the specific task and must take into account hazards
specific to the environment such as live services, adjacent trades
etc.
12. Safe System and Planning
• The SPA must be related to the specific task that the employee is
involved in.

• If the employee moves onto a new task he/she must produce a
new SPA.
• The task must be broken out into steps firstly. Once this is done
the hazards can be identified for each step. (When identifying
hazards ask the question how you or someone else can get hurt).
• Once hazards have been identified, a safe plan can be put in
place to either eliminate the hazard or mitigate the risk.

• When identifying resources to enable the safe plan, include time,
tools, equipment and manpower. Statements like, awareness,
training, vigilance do not belong in the resources column. SPA Purpose:
The SPA is an accident / incident
• All crew members must be involved in the development of the prevention tool designed to allow
SPA at the place where the task is to be undertaken. employees / crews executing tasks to
• We do not have daily or weekly SPA’s we have task specific conduct a pre task plan that identifies
SPA’s. the hazards, their reaction to change
and the controls they will put in place to
• All employees involved in developing the SPA must sign off on either eliminate the hazard or control
the SPA. the level of risk.
• SPA is to be posted at the work location.
• Supervisor to review SPA in the morning or once the SPA is
developed and sign off on the SPA. Any comments the
supervisor has can be written into the SPA.

1 Visual Standards | Feb. 2019