Safety in the workplace

Across the Group, we focus on a preventative approach to Health and Safety (H&S), aiming to provide a safe, secure and fulfilling workplace. We are focused on moving beyond compliance to looking after the well-being of our employees.

Our health and safety management systems

Group-wide, we focus on a number of areas for action and continuous improvement:

• leadership commitment
• effective risk and hazard management and compliance
• connecting with our people - consultation, communication and engagement of employees
• increased knowledge, skills and capacity to act in accordance with policies and procedures
• employee well-being initiatives.

The requirements for occupational health and safety vary slightly in each country in which we operate. Each regional business has a H&S strategy and systems to ensure we continue to meet regulatory requirements and our H&S objectives.

In Australia, NAB is self insured for workers compensation nationally through ComCare. In New Zealand, we have full self-cover status in the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) Partnership Program, a scheme for work-related injury claims. In the UK, we ensure our H&S system complies with HSE Guidance Note Document HSG(65) 'Successful Health and Safety Management'.

Each of our businesses operates at least one H&S committee that meets regularly to consider H&S matters and to provide a consultation forum for discussion and resolution of workplace, H&S and well-being issues. The committees represent all of our employees on H&S matters.

In each of our regional businesses collective agreements specifically refer to occupational health and safety. In Australia, our Enterprise Agreement (EA) commits both NAB and the Finance Sector Union (FSU) to the development and maintenance of a safe and healthy work environment and to the wellbeing of employees. In New Zealand, in addition to the provisions in the collective agreement with Finsec and our Employee Participation Agreement, H&S requirements are set out in the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. In the UK, we have a H&S Agreement with our employee union, Unite, and the H&S Committee meets regularly with the union. H&S reports are provided to the Board, Group Executive Committee and our regional business executive committees on at least a quarterly basis.

H&S reports provide information on six key areas:

• Governance and regulation - update on significant legislative changes that may impact the relevant business and actions to address them
• H&S audit outcomes, exceptions and corrective actions - update on health and safety management system audit results, improvement areas and corrective action plans
• Notifiable, reportable and serious harm incidents - update on workplace incidents or injuries that we must report to regulators
• Prosecution, prohibition or improvement notices - update on any notices issued for alleged breaches of H&S legislation
• Strategy and initiatives - update on any H&S and well-being strategies implemented, or proposed to be implemented, to improve the health, safety and well-being of employees
• Performance measures and claims data - update on H&S performance measures and claims.

H&S management systems are audited annually to ensure compliance with relevant legislation and standards. Audits are conducted by our internal audit function and independent external auditors. Also, in Australia, our H&S system is audited by the national regulator, Comcare. New Zealand has an annual internal audit, as well as an external ACC audit where an independent ACC auditor audits several randomly selected sites across the country. In the UK, external audits examine policy, knowledge, risk assessment and physical environment in the workplace.

We provide an annual update on our H&S performance and initiatives in our CR Reporting.