Management system guidance
4.0 Context of the Organization
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4.3 Determining the scope of the OH&S management system
Clause 4.3 of ISO 45001:2018 requires your organization to determine the boundaries and applicability of its OH&S management system in order to establish its scope. When doing so, it must:
- Consider the external and internal issues identified under 4.1;
- Take into account the requirements of workers and other interested parties identified under 4.2;
- Take into account the work-related activities it carries out or plans to carry out.
Any activity, product or service that your organization controls or can influence, and that could have an effect on its OH&S performance, must be inside the system. The scope must be available as documented information.
Note the different verbs. Annex A.3 explains that something you ‘consider’ must be thought about but can be excluded, whereas something you ‘take into account’ must be thought about and cannot be excluded. Interested party requirements and your work activities therefore carry more weight than context issues when you set the scope.
Boundaries and applicability
The boundaries are the physical and organizational limits of the system: which sites, buildings, departments, legal entities and locations it covers. Applicability is about which activities, products and services fall within those boundaries. Your organization is free to apply the system to the whole organization or to a specific part of it, provided the leaders of that part have their own functions, responsibilities and authority to set up an OH&S management system.
When setting the boundaries, think about:
- All sites, including temporary sites, client premises, vehicles and home working arrangements;
- Routine and non-routine work, such as maintenance, cleaning, commissioning and out-of-hours activities;
- Products and services that can affect workers, for example equipment you install or substances you handle;
- Contractors and outsourced functions or processes (see 8.1.4);
- Shared workplaces and multi-employer sites, and how far you control or influence the work carried out there;
- Centralized support functions, such as HR, purchasing or engineering, that serve the sites within scope.
A credible scope
The credibility of your OH&S management system depends on the boundaries you choose. Annex A.4.3 makes clear that the scope should not be used to leave out activities, products or services that have, or could have, an effect on OH&S performance, or to avoid legal requirements and other requirements. The scope should be a factual and representative statement of the operations included, and it must not mislead interested parties.
Certification auditors will challenge a scope that omits higher-risk activities, for example a warehouse, a maintenance team or work at client sites. Your scope decisions should be reasonable and applied consistently.
Unlike ISO 9001, ISO 45001 has no mechanism for declaring individual requirements ‘not applicable’. The standard states that claims of conformity are only acceptable when all its requirements are incorporated into the OH&S management system and fulfilled without exclusion. You can limit the boundaries of the system, but not the requirements that apply within them.
Writing the scope statement
A good scope statement describes the activities, products and services covered and the sites or locations where they are carried out. If parts of the organization are outside the boundaries, say so clearly. For certification purposes a statement of around 15–25 words is usually sufficient. For example:
- ‘Design, installation and maintenance of commercial heating and ventilation systems, carried out from our premises at … and at client sites throughout the UK.’
- ‘Manufacture and distribution of precision machined components for aerospace and industrial customers at …’
The scope is usually kept in the OH&S manual or a similar top-level document, and controlled in line with 7.5. Discuss it with your certification body early in the selection process, because it will normally appear on your certificate. Ready-made scope wording is included in our health and safety management system templates.
Keeping the scope up to date
Review the scope when your context changes, for example when you open or close a site, acquire a business, start a new type of work or begin using contractors for activities you previously did yourself. The scope is also one of the inputs your organization must consider when planning for risks and opportunities in 6.1.1.
You should seek and record evidence that your organization has determined the boundaries and applicability of the OH&S management system with reference to its internal and external issues, the requirements of workers and other interested parties, and its planned and performed work activities; that no activities, products or services affecting OH&S performance have been left out; and that the scope is available as documented information and kept up to date.
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