What is an asbestos management plan?
An asbestos management plan is a written document that sets out how asbestos or asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) in a workplace will be managed over time. It's not a one-off report. It's a living document that guides day-to-day decisions about maintenance, repairs, and any work that could disturb asbestos materials.
Under the Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, a PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking) who manages or controls a workplace must prepare an asbestos management plan if asbestos or ACMs have been identified, or are assumed to be present.
Who needs one?
If you're a PCBU with management or control of a workplace, and asbestos has been identified or is reasonably assumed to exist in the building, you need a plan. This covers a wide range of situations: commercial offices, retail premises, industrial buildings, schools, hospitals, and other workplaces built before 2000. Many of these older buildings contain asbestos in predictable locations.
You can't contract out of this duty. Even if you engage a consultant to prepare the plan, the legal responsibility sits with you as the PCBU. Landlords and building owners often share overlapping duties with tenants here, so it's worth clarifying who does what early on.
What goes into the plan?
Regulation 13 of the Asbestos Regulations sets out what the plan must include. At a practical level, your management plan should cover:
- The identification of asbestos or ACMs at the workplace, including where they are located (which room, which wall, which building)
- Decisions about how the risk of exposure will be managed, and the reasons behind those decisions
- Procedures for dealing with accidents, incidents, or emergencies involving asbestos
- The workers responsible for carrying out the plan
- Information about training and induction for workers who may encounter asbestos
- A timetable for reviewing the plan
The plan should be practical and specific to your workplace. A generic template with your building name pasted in won't cut it.
The asbestos register and how it fits in
The asbestos register is a separate requirement under regulation 10, but it feeds directly into the management plan. The register records what asbestos or ACMs have been identified, where they are, and what condition they're in. For practical guidance on building and maintaining one, see our guide on what goes into an asbestos register. Think of the register as the factual foundation and the management plan as the action document built on top of it.
Under regulation 12, you also need to make sure that the presence and location of identified asbestos is clearly indicated at the workplace. This might mean labelling, signage, or marking on building plans.
When to review the plan
Regulation 14 requires the plan to be reviewed (and revised if necessary) when circumstances change. That could mean:
- Asbestos is removed from the workplace
- The condition of ACMs changes (for example, damage or deterioration)
- Control measures are found to be inadequate
- New asbestos or ACMs are identified
- A health and safety representative requests a review
There's no fixed review period written into the regulations, but WorkSafe recommends reviewing the plan at least every five years, and sooner if any of those triggers apply. Good practice is to review it annually as part of your building maintenance cycle.
Getting it right
Most facility managers don't prepare these plans themselves. An experienced asbestos consultant can conduct the survey, prepare the register, and draft a management plan that actually reflects your building and your operations. The initial survey work is typically carried out by a qualified asbestos surveyor who can identify and assess materials on site.
What matters most is that the plan isn't just filed away. Workers and contractors who might encounter asbestos need to know it exists and what to do. If maintenance staff can't easily access the plan or don't know what it says, it's not doing its job.
Sources
- Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, reg 10 (Duty to ensure asbestos identified at workplace)
- Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, reg 12 (Duty to ensure presence and location of asbestos indicated)
- Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, reg 13 (Duty to prepare asbestos management plan)
- Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, reg 14 (Duty to review asbestos management plan)