A lot of our operators are due for the big recertification audit around August- October 2023. Here are some things to keep in mind between now and your certification renewal:

Your certification date is the date that your certificate expires, not the date to be audited. Well-prepared operators should aim to have their audit completed and put to bed at least two weeks before the expiry. Remember that after your auditor finishes your closing meeting and leaves, they still need to go over all your audit information and write your audit report. The audit and report then needs to be reviewed and passed through the moderation process and then approved by the certifier. Once that’s done, a certificate is issued and all the information is sent to WorkSafe. WorkSafe will be processing all the other recertifications at the same time, so from the time AdventureMark gets your report and certificate to WorkSafe it can take around 10 working days for them to accept your certification and renew your registration on the WorkSafe register. If that doesn’t happen before your existing registration expires, you may find yourself exposed to operating without current registration, which is a breach of the Adventure Activities Regulations. So the message? Plan ahead and start early.

Q: I submitted on the review of the Safety Audit Standard for Adventure Activities, what is happening there?

MBIE and WorkSafe will be working through all the submissions. Adventure Activities is a small industry so you can probably expect your submission to be taken seriously. This is a good thing. WorkSafe have indicated that we can expect a revised standard in April 2023. This means that, for a lot of us, the next audit will be conducted against an updated standard. Until the new Safety Standard is published, we don’t know what it will look like but here are some recommendations:

• Review the existing standard to be comfortable with the content, we don’t foresee enormous changes.
• Review the proposed changes to the standard. It’s likely that, unless there are lots of submissions proposing something very different, the new requirements will already be fairly apparent.
• Keep up to date with industry newsletters. TIA, RA, and all the specific activity sector associations, etc, all work to advocate on your behalf. AdventureMark publishes articles like this one and Facebook posts to keep you informed. Change is coming and the only way to keep on top of it is to stay on top of news.
• Follow the news. Our industry hasn’t had many instances of prosecutions or trials so the outcomes of the Whakaari tragedy court cases show us how lawyers and judges interpret the rules that we are subject to.
• When the new standard is published, try to conduct an internal audit against it. Don’t wait for your next audit to identify all the areas where change is needed.

There is opposition to audits, and how audits are conducted. We definitely acknowledge that there are operators who work very hard to keep their customers safe and provide an enjoyable activity. Sometimes, compliance requirements can even be seen to get in the way of that. That doesn't mean standards and rules aren't needed (they are as they provide a baseline) but if everyone involved had a better understanding of the rules and requirements, we’d all be able to make the system fit better for our own operations.