An audit aims to provide an independent and therefore an unbiased and

balanced assessment of the effectiveness of the health and safety management

subsystem in implementation. Independent auditing augments the subsystem

monitoring mechanisms by providing information to the organization which

can be linked back to company policy making, organization, risk assessment

and planning. In so doing the organization has the opportunity to consider

and review its entire subsystem to ensure its implementation is consistent

with other organizational subsystems, such as quality or environmental pro-

cedures used across different project sites and the policy and objectives of the

corporate organization which supports the company's core business. An audit

may focus on the management mechanisms of the system's implementation

or behavioural characteristics of the managers and workforce that enact the

system's procedures and working instructions (see Chapter 13).