Assessment programs

The implementation of planned assessment programs for mines and petroleum sites is a crucial element in the Resources Regulator's incident prevention strategy.

The Resources Regulator has developed assessment tools to proactively develop the Regulator’s incident prevention strategy for health and safety compliance across the NSW resources industry.

The Regulator’s planned assessment programs focus on assessing a mine operator's management of the critical controls to prevent material unwanted events (MUE) and evaluate the effectiveness of critical controls in the mine operator’s health and safety management system. 

The Regulator’s planned assessment programs have been developed from a broad-brush risk assessment review conducted in January 2024 of the major risks in the NSW mining industry and will focus on legislated principal hazards and control plans.

The Regulator acknowledges various terminology definitions published by the ICCM and other safety organisations. However, for the purposes of the Regulators assessment program a critical control is a control that, of itself, materially impacts the likelihood or consequence of an event in the absence of other controls.

The Regulator will assess the identified critical controls to prevent a MUE which for the purpose of the Regulator’s assessment program a MUE is the point at which a system reaches an uncontrollable deviation from safe operations and has the potential to result in multiple deaths though a single incident or a series of recurring incidents resulting in a fatality outcome. 

Regulator assessments will assess documentation and implementation of the critical controls at mine sites and will provide a report to the mine operator. The Inspector may in certain circumstances issue written directions to the mine operator using compliance notices issued under WHS Act legislation as a result of the findings of the assessment review at the mine.

At the completion of the overall assessment program, the Regulator will publish a summary information report to advise industry of overall assessment findings, the number and types of compliance notices issued and provide industry with recommendations relating to the findings of the critical control assessments. 

The Regulator acknowledges that mine sites have the ability to identify and manage their own critical controls based on the context of that individual business.

View our assessment program fact sheets

Principal hazards

Control plans

Other program topics

View our assessment program reports