Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals (BCRSP) Accreditation

We are pleased to announce that AMHSA’s auditor training program has been pre-approved for continuing education units by the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals (BCRSP). Those who complete the program are eligible for 1 CEU point under category A9 – Achieving an Additional Certification or License.

2024 Auditing Guidelines and Deadlines

Please keep the following in mind while planning and conducting your 2024 audits:

• Audits must be registered using the Audit Registration form, and once the form is received we will supply the most up-to-date version of the audit tool to be used
• The use of all audit validation techniques (documentation review, interviews, and observational tours) is again required
• Data gathering can be conducted either remotely or in-person – please contact AMHSA for information on conducting remote observations
• 12 months of documentation is required
• Scoring requirements:
• COR Certification audits require a score of 80% overall and 50% in each element, and
• COR Maintenance audits require a score of 60% overall
• Deadlines:
• Applications for use of Action Plans in lieu of COR Maintenance audits must be submitted to AMHSA on the official template, by June 30, 2024. To determine if you are eligible and to obtain the template, email audits@amhsa.net. We strongly recommend creation of the plan and application earlier in the year, to allow more time to complete the action items.
• Requests to participate in the external peer audit process are due July 1, 2024. Provide audits@amhsa.net with your request including scope information (number of permanent manned worksites and employees), month you’d like your audit conducted, auditors available to perform a peer audit at another municipality, and your contact information.
• Submission deadline for COR audits is December 1, 2024, and regular deadlines for data gathering (maximum 45 days) and submission (maximum 21 days from last data gathering date) also apply. 

Focus on Quantification

Since 2018, the most common revision required by quality assurance reviews is the need for proper quantification of score in justification notes with positive indicators found. Simply put, quantification is explaining how you arrived at the percentage awarded for the question with a numerical value, based on the criteria in the question. For example, this can be done by:

• providing x/x documents reviewed that met the question guidelines; or
• providing x/x required components that were present in policy/process-related questions; or
• providing x/x legislative requirements that were met; or
• providing x/x observations that were positive or x/x sites at which positive observations were made.

Restating the score that was awarded based on XX% is not quantification. For example, “Awarded 5/5 based on 100% positive indicators” is NOT acceptable, because your justification notes must provide information on why that question received that percentage.

Note that while we can accept justification notes for Interview questions without quantification (due to the audit tools containing the raw data and automatically calculating those percentages and scores), we still recommend including the x/x positive responses in justification notes as a best practice. This helps the reader understand the interview question scoring.

Please see your Health and Safety Auditing training manual for examples.  

Cascading (Dependent Scoring) Questions

Scoring – there are several questions in the audit tool which utilize a dependent scoring process. The theory behind this scoring technique is that any gap noted at any point in these critical areas is so important that it fundamentally impacts other areas that are dependent on the results. The auditor awards the percentage of positive indicators as usual, for each individual question, and then the Excel workbook checks for dependent/cascading scoring and automatically awards the correct score. Do NOT adjust the percent you award based on the score of the previous question in the cascading questions. Always award the % based on that specific question’s requirements, and the audit tool will do the required math.

Sampling – It should be noted that there are cascading/dependent questions in the areas of Hazard Assessment and Control that require you to use a consistent documentation sample. The Hazard Assessment element starts with 2.01 which cannot be sampled, then in 2.02 the auditor samples the hazard assessment documentation, addressing task lists for a selection of jobs/positions.  

• In 2.03, the auditor addresses if both health and safety hazards are identified FOR THE TASKS SAMPLED IN QUESTION 2.02.
• In 2.04, the auditor addresses if each hazard IDENTIFIED IN QUESTION 2.03 has been assessed for risk.  
• In 2.05, the interviewees must be knowledgeable of the highest hazard tasks related to their operation, IDENTIFIED IN 2.04.
• In 3.01, the auditor addresses if the hazards identified in 2.03 have controls identified.
• In 3.02, 3.03, and 3.04, the auditor follows up on a sample of controls IDENTIFIED IN 3.01 to verify implementation.

Justification Notes - Notes should verify that the same sample of documents was used in the cascading/dependent scoring questions, but you do not need to use the same task/hazard as examples in your justification notes for these questions. As in other areas, your justification notes require quantification of score (see Focus on Quantification Article) and examples/detail of findings from the documentation sampled.

2024 Training

Health and Safety Management Systems: March 5-6, May 15-16, September 4-5

Health and Safety Auditing: May 28-29, September 17-18

Audit Refresher: April 11

SECOR: May 22

Remember that you must attend Refresher training within your 3-year auditor certification period. Please email audits@amhsa.net to register.