Who holds health and safety duties under the HSWA — and what happens when those duties overlap
A PCBU — a person conducting a business or undertaking — is the entity that holds the primary duty of care under the HSWA. It is usually the business itself, not the people in it: workers, officers, and volunteer associations with no employees are not PCBUs. When more than one PCBU shares a duty — common on any shared site — section 34 requires each to consult, co-operate and co-ordinate with the others: the so-called 3 Cs.
PCBU stands for “person conducting a business or undertaking”. It is the HSWA's term for the duty holder that carries the primary duty of care. A PCBU can be an individual or an organisation, and the duty applies whether or not the business or undertaking is run for profit or gain.
A business is usually a profit-making activity with a degree of organisation, system and continuity. An undertaking may not be commercial — a school, a charity that employs staff, or a statutory body can all be undertakings. In practice the PCBU is normally the legal entity — the company, partnership or sole trader — rather than the individual directors or staff within it.
| Party | PCBU? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A company, sole trader or partnership | Yes | The entity conducting the business or undertaking holds the primary duty. |
| A self-employed contractor | Yes | They conduct their own business or undertaking — and may also be a worker of another PCBU. |
| A worker | No | To the extent they are engaged solely as a worker; they hold their own narrower duties instead. |
| An officer (e.g. a director) | No | An officer has a separate due-diligence duty, but is not themselves the PCBU. |
| A volunteer association with no employees | No | A group of volunteers for a community purpose that employs no one is excluded. |
| A home occupier hiring a tradesperson | No | Engaging someone solely for residential work around the home does not make the occupier a PCBU. |
Source: HSWA 2015, s17.
The categories are not mutually exclusive. A self-employed electrician engaged by a builder is a PCBU in their own right and a worker of the builder at the same time. A director is an officer of their company and may also be a worker. The HSWA expects each duty to be met in each capacity — being one thing does not excuse you from the duties of another.
Modern work rarely happens in isolation. On a building site, in a shopping centre, or wherever one business's work meets another's, several PCBUs can hold the same duty toward the same workers, workplace, plant or task. The HSWA calls these overlapping duties.
Two rules follow. First, the duties are concurrent — more than one PCBU can have the same duty at the same time, and each must comply to the standard the Act requires. You cannot assume another business has it covered. Second, duties cannot be transferred or contracted out: you can make reasonable arrangements about who does what, but every PCBU remains responsible for meeting its own duty.
Section 34 is the engine of overlapping duties. Where more than one PCBU has a duty in relation to the same matter, each must, so far as is reasonably practicable, consult, co-operate with, and co-ordinate activities with all the others.
| C | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Consult | Share what you know about the risks and your controls, and ask others about theirs — before work starts and as it changes. |
| Co-operate | Respond to reasonable requests from other PCBUs, and don't obstruct them in meeting their duties. |
| Co-ordinate | Align activities so controls fit together and there are no gaps — or doubled-up effort — where the work meets. |
The aim is to close the gaps that open up when businesses each assume someone else is managing a shared risk. Breaches of section 34 rarely stand alone — they usually appear alongside a breach of another duty, and the number of section 34 prosecutions has been rising as more work happens across multiple PCBUs.
If you engage contractors, or work as one, the 3 Cs are where your contractor-management duties live in practice: agree who controls which risks, share method statements and site rules, and keep talking as the work changes. Getting overlapping duties right is also the backbone of prequalification — schemes exist precisely because principals need confidence that the PCBUs they engage can meet their shared duties. See contractor & subcontractor management and the primary duty of care.
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PCBU stands for “person conducting a business or undertaking”. It is the HSWA's term for the main duty holder — the entity that carries the primary duty of care — and it can be an individual or an organisation, profit-making or not.
Usually no. The PCBU is normally the company itself, not the director. A director is an “officer” with a separate personal due-diligence duty to ensure the PCBU meets its duties. A director could be a PCBU in another capacity — for example if they also run their own separate business.
Yes. A self-employed contractor is a PCBU conducting their own business and, when engaged by another business, is also a worker of that PCBU. The HSWA expects the duties of each capacity to be met.
Overlapping duties arise when more than one PCBU holds the same duty in relation to the same workers, workplace, plant or task — common wherever businesses work together. The duties are concurrent: each PCBU must meet the duty, and it cannot be transferred or contracted out.
The 3 Cs are consult, co-operate and co-ordinate. Where PCBUs share a duty, section 34 requires each, so far as is reasonably practicable, to consult with, co-operate with, and co-ordinate activities with the others, so shared risks are managed without gaps.
