A regulatory perspective on safety in design practices in New Zealand

Abstract Previous research regarding safety in design (SiD) primarily focused on legal aspects of integrating health and safety into the design, identifying causal links between flawed designs and accidents, safe design tools and methods, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Despite these advancements in SiD, there is a lack of studies investigating how new SiD regulations changed SiD knowledge, attitude, and practices. To fill the research gap, this paper aims to (1) examine current SiD knowledge, attitude, and practices after the introduction of the New Zealand Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA), (2) examine stakeholders’ perceptions about the effects of the HSWA on SiD, and (3) identify challenges of SiD implementation. This study adopted mixed methods consisting of a survey and semi-structured interviews. Results indicated an urgent need for developing SiD capability at the company and industry level, although the industry had a positive attitude toward SiD. Several challenges in SiD implementation were identified, including (1) additional cost and time, (2) unclear scope of SiD, (3) opaque SiD process, (4) lack of collaboration/support, and (5) lack of good practice. Both survey and interview participants raised several significant concerns over the new SiD regulations, HSWA 2015. These include (1) HSWA being vague and more details needed to promote the implementation, (2) lack of good practice examples and case studies, (3) lack of non-compliance examples, and (4) compliance burden on small businesses. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge of safe design regarding industry professionals’ perceptions of SiD knowledge, attitude, practices, implementation challenges, and new SiD regulations. In addition, the regulatory perspective on SiD offered insights into regulation and policy formulation.