Essential Services Audits,
Installed Safety Maintenance and Inspections.

As a building owner or manager, it is your legal responsibility to ensure you provide a safe & healthy working environment for your staff and visitors. The State Government has outlined specific essential services legislation requirements which, if not met, can result in heavy fines.
At a high level, the term “essential services” refers to your building’s fire and life safety systems.
To correctly maintain these services, you need to:

• Ensure your services are maintained as specified by the Australian Standard and Building Code of Australia
• Periodically test and provide maintenance, with documented test results

As the recognised leader in essential services audits, AESC can give you the confidence and peace of mind you need to be certain that you are meeting your statutory obligations, and not at risk of fines or other penalties.
A Thorough, Three-Staged Process
To ensure your building complies with all Essential Safety Measures, AESC will work with you during three processes:

1. Stage 1 – Safety Measures Audit & Reports Manual
2. Stage 2 - Achieive Compliance through the Resolution of Outstanding Issues Identified in the Audit Report
3. Stage 3 - Implementation of the Ongoing Control and Annual Certification of ESM Compliance

These three stages will be explained in more detail below.

Stage 1

Essential Safety Measures Audit & Report Manual

The first step to understanding how we can best help you minimise your risk exposure, is to review your current situation. One of our accredited auditors will come out to see you and conduct  a comprehensive, robust onsite audit.

You will then be given a detailed report, identifying:

• A comprehensive list of all ESM items at your site
• Any exposure to ESM non-compliance, along with specific reasons why the items are non-compliant… and effective solutions to fix them
• A complete list of contractors used for maintenance and repairs of ESM equipment (with your assistance)

If we find that your site is compliant in all areas, AESC will issue you a Compliance Form / Statement – a requirement of both State Legislation, andyour local council (who
enforce the legislation).

On the other hand, if there are areas where your building is non-compliant with ESM, then you’ll receive a status report detailing the exact situation of all outstanding ESM itmes, along with a suggested course of action to make each item compliant.
Failure to ensure every aspect of your building is ESM compliant, can result in severe penalties (including having your building closed by Council, and ongoing heavy fines). But with AESC to guide you every step of the way, there will be no reason for this to eventuate.
In fact, for greater peace of mind and even further reduced risk, AESC Auditors can (upon your request) report on any general OH&S risk observed during the audit.

As part of the auditing process, you will also get an ESM Manual for your site - for quick & easy reference for you and your staff.
Stage 2
Achieive compliance through the resolution of outstanding issues identified in the Audit Report

With the audit and report completed, Stage 2 focuses on the resolution of any outstanding items identified during the previous step.

Here are some of the actions we may take on your behalf during Stage 2:

• Provide recommendations of suitable “Quality-Assured contractors” who are equipped to provide efficient and timely resolutions to your outstanding ESM items. These contractors will ensure the work is carried out in accordance with the required local Legislative and Australian standards.
• Seek competitive quotes for your organisation from these “Quality-Assured contractors”, to provide you with the most cost-effective solution (without compromising the quality of the work)
• Manage all of your ESM items efficiently and effectively via a site-specific database
• Closely manage the status of the issues, to ensure your building will qualify for compliance certification as soon as all issues are resolved. This means that nothing will be overlooked, and the certification can be granted at the earliest possible time.
• Analyse your existing contractor arrangements & services, and provide advice on possible opportunities to reduce costs through rationalisation.

Stage 3

Implementation of the Ongoing Control and Annual Certification of ESM Compliance

By Stage 3, all oustanding non-compliance issues have been successfully resolved. AESC will then provide you with a management system designed to maintain compliance at your site, and give you ongoing annual Compliance Certification. This ensures you are always meeting the current Legislation requirements.

With this program, you will get:

• AESC Compliance Management System implementation – allowing you to maintain ongoing compliance and manage your annual ESM certification
• A customised site-specific database (created and maintained by AESC) - containing all ESM items and contractors required to maintain these services for your sites
• Quarterly site inspections – not only are these are required for your business to meet applicable Legislative requirements, they also allow us to monitor non-compliant issues and report to your representative on the status of these issues
• Monitoring of ESM maintenance & testing regimes of the servicing contractors - to ensure that an effective system is in place, and to identify issues as early as possible
• Collated annual certification documentation from all contractors - and an auditable document trail for these documents
• Quarterly reports to your nominated representative – ensuring you are frequently updated with the status of your EMS situation. If you prefer, we can publish these reports on the internet for your retrieval at any time
• Ongoing annual certification for compliant sites
• Detailed reports by request – for any general OH&S risks observed during the quarterly inspections
• A valuable client reminder service – receive notifications of any non-compliant items remaining un-actioned after a reasonable period