5 NEW SUPERVISION REQUIREMENTS FOR ELECTRICAL APPRENTICES: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Apprenticeships are a vital part of the electrical industry. They ensure that there is a constant supply of skilled electricians available to meet society’s ever growing need for electrically powered technology. Because of the potentially hazardous nature of working with electricity, it’s also vital that apprentices are kept as safe as possible while they undertake their on-the-job training.
Australia has always maintained extremely high levels of workplace safety, especially when it comes to the supervision of apprentices. In keeping with this, there are now new supervision requirements for electrical apprentices that you need to be aware of if you want to make sure that you’re legally covered and that your apprentices are provided with the safest work environment possible.
Published in the Government Gazette on June 7th this year, Amendments to the Electricity (licensing) Regulations detailed new regulations 49C and 49D and amended regulations 50 and 50AA.
These provide new and detailed requirements for the supervisions of electrical apprentices and worker safety.
Intended to ensure that the proper supervision of apprentices is adhered to at all times, the new key requirements are:
1. Three levels of supervision are defined: direct, general, broad.
2. The appropriate level of supervision must be determined by the supervisor.
3. The employer must be satisfied the supervisor has the necessary supervisory skills.
4. Limits are set on the number of apprentices being supervised.
5. Strong restrictions apply to apprentices working on or near energised equipment.
To make sure that you’re keeping yourself legally covered and following the new requirements, we’d highly recommend checking out the following new supporting documents and informational videos that outline the recommended minimum levels of supervision for different work situations along with general electrical safety principles:
Safe working guidelines and assessment for electrical apprentices
(previously named the Apprentice Safety Assessment Guidelines)
Safe working guidelines for electrical workers
(previously named the Safety Guidelines for Electrical Workers)
A full copy of the amended Electricity (Licensing) Regulations 1991 can accessed through the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office website. A copy of the amendments only can be downloaded from the State Law Publisher website.
Further information is available on the Building and Energy website. If you have any other questions about apprenticeship supervision please contact Electrical Group Training (EGT), or get in touch with us for information about our apprenticeship training courses. As WA’s leading provider of apprenticeship training courses, CET always has a finger on the pulse of what’s going on, and what businesses need to do to comply with new regulations such as these.
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