Health and Safety Board Report: What to Include (NZ Template)

A health and safety board report is one of the main ways directors get the information their due diligence duty depends on, although it never replaces checking for themselves. In many of the New Zealand businesses I see it's built the wrong way round. It opens with injury rates and training percentages and ends, if it gets there at all, with the things that could actually kill someone.

The template below flips that order around completely. It's the structure I'd want in front of a board heading into the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026, where verifying the controls on critical risks is a core part of the officer duty.

What Should a Health and Safety Board Report Include?

A good health and safety board report answers one question for every director: are our people being kept safe from the things most likely to seriously hurt them and how do we know? Everything in it should help answer that. I'd build it in seven parts:

1. Critical risks and control verification
2. Serious incidents, near misses and their fixes
3. Lead and lag indicators
4. Legal, regulatory and compliance matters
5. Worker engagement and what workers are raising
6. Contractors and shared sites
7. Decisions and resources the board needs to approve

Each part should be short enough to read in a few minutes. A director should be able to read the whole report before the meeting and come in with questions, not spend the meeting finding out what it says.

Health and Safety Board Report Template

Lead and Lag Indicators in a Board Report

Lag indicators count harm after it has happened, things like lost time injuries, recordable injuries and notifiable events. Lead indicators measure the activity that should prevent harm before it happens. A board report needs both, however most reports are almost all lag and that leaves directors looking in the rear-view mirror.

Lead indicators that tell a board something useful include:

• The share of planned critical control checks that were done and how many found a control missing or not working
• Senior leader and officer site visits focused on critical risks, with what they found
• Corrective actions closed on time and the number checked as effective after closure
• Near miss and hazard reports, read alongside the critical control results. A rise can mean people trust the system enough to speak up or that more near misses are actually happening
• Worker engagement actions raised and closed
• Higher risk contractors prequalified before starting work

Pick a few that match your critical risks and keep them stable so the board can see trends. A long list of indicators that changes every quarter tells a director very little.

What to Leave Out of a Health and Safety Board Report

The most common problem with board reports isn't missing information, it's too much of the wrong kind. Pages of training completion rates, audit counts and toolbox talk attendance describe effort. They don't tell a director whether the guard is on the machine tonight.

Injury rates on their own can mislead too. A low rate can sit alongside a critical control that's quietly being skipped. In the Gibson decision the court found the monitoring wasn't good enough to pick up breaches of the crane exclusion zone, particularly on night shift. Keep the rates for context and put the evidence on critical controls ahead of them.

Leave out operational detail that belongs with management too. The board's job is to govern and the report should give enough detail to question and verify without pulling directors into running the site.

How Often Should the Board See a Health and Safety Report?

The law doesn't set a frequency, however I'd recommend most boards see a health and safety report at every board meeting, with health and safety near the top of the agenda instead of the last item before lunch. Serious incidents shouldn't wait for the next meeting. Agree a rule for what gets escalated to the chair or the board straight away and write it down.

Once a year the board should step back from the regular report and review the critical risk list itself, the indicators it's using and whether the reporting is giving it a true picture. An independent view of the reporting at that point is worth a lot because it's hard to judge the quality of information you've been reading every month.

Questions Directors Should Ask When They Read the Report

• Which critical control checks found a problem this period and what happened next?
• Which corrective actions were closed and how do we know they worked?
• What are workers raising that isn't in this report?
• What would we need to see to know a critical risk was getting worse?
• Is there anything management would rather not put in writing?

The free Officer Due Diligence Check covers the wider set of questions directors should be able to answer.

Health and Safety Board Reporting After 1 April 2027

From 1 April 2027 the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 defines critical risk in law and restates officer due diligence around understand, ensure and verify. A board report built around critical risks and control verification lines up directly with both. One built around injury rates and activity counts will look increasingly thin. My guide to the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 explains what changes and my post on the officer due diligence checklist covers what directors should be able to show.

Frequently Asked Questions About Health and Safety Board Reports

What should be in a health and safety board report?

Critical risks and evidence their controls were checked, serious incidents and whether the fixes worked, a few lead and lag indicators, legal and compliance matters, worker engagement, contractor issues and decisions the board needs to make.

What is the difference between lead and lag indicators in health and safety?

Lag indicators count harm after it happens, such as injuries and notifiable events. Lead indicators measure the activity that prevents harm, such as critical control checks completed, leader site visits and corrective actions closed and checked.

How often should a board receive a health and safety report?

The law doesn't set one, however I'd recommend every board meeting for most businesses, with serious incidents escalated straight away under an agreed rule. Once a year the board should also review its critical risks and the quality of the reporting itself.

Are injury rates enough for a board report?

No, injury rates only show harm that has already happened and a low rate can hide a critical control that isn't working. Use them for context and lead with evidence on critical controls.

Who should write the health and safety board report?

Usually the chief executive or the senior health and safety lead prepares it for management. The board decides what it needs to see. An independent review once a year helps check the report gives a true picture.

How long should a health and safety board report be?

Short enough to be read properly before the meeting. Lead with critical risks on the first page and move detail into appendices so directors can focus on questions and decisions.

Sources: Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, section 44; WorkSafe, Officers' due diligence; WorkSafe, Understanding the changes to health and safety law. This post is general guidance, not legal advice.