Clause 5.1: Leadership and commitment
Top management shows leadership and commitment by: taking overall responsibility, and being accountable, for preventing injury and ill health caused by work and for keeping workplaces and activities safe and healthy; making sure the OH&S policy and objectives are set and fit the organization's strategic direction; building the system into business processes; making resources available; explaining why effective OH&S management, and meeting the system's requirements, matter; making sure the system achieves what it is meant to; guiding and supporting people to contribute; making sure continual improvement happens and encouraging it; backing other relevant managers in their own leadership; building and promoting a culture that supports what the system is meant to achieve; shielding workers from reprisal when they report hazards, incidents, opportunities and risks; and making sure processes exist for consulting workers and for their participation, and for health and safety committees where these exist.
What clause 5.1 asks
Top management shows leadership and commitment by: taking overall responsibility, and being accountable, for preventing injury and ill health caused by work and for keeping workplaces and activities safe and healthy; making sure the OH&S policy and objectives are set and fit the organization's strategic direction; building the system into business processes; making resources available; explaining why effective OH&S management, and meeting the system's requirements, matter; making sure the system achieves what it is meant to; guiding and supporting people to contribute; making sure continual improvement happens and encouraging it; backing other relevant managers in their own leadership; building and promoting a culture that supports what the system is meant to achieve; shielding workers from reprisal when they report hazards, incidents, opportunities and risks; and making sure processes exist for consulting workers and for their participation, and for health and safety committees where these exist.
Leadership is tested by decisions about money, time and consequences. The clause lists what top management must actually do, including protecting workers from reprisal, building a culture and making consultation work.
Fund the remote workplace, not only the policy. The consultation release describes practical guidance for organizations of all sizes and sectors, and shared responsibility between the organization and the worker. Leadership commitment shows in the resources that reach a remote worker: equipment, training, manager time, mental health support and a reporting route that does not punish the reporter. A policy that leaves the cost and the risk with the worker does not meet the direction of the public record.
Basis: BSI, BSI Standards Development. For clause 5.1, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 5.1 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 5.1
An auditor will look for a decision where safety won over schedule or cost, and for evidence that a worker who reported something was not punished for it.
- Leadership Executive accountability statements and safety leadership visits
- Leadership Board or executive minutes with OH&S performance reviewed
- Leadership Resource decisions traceable to OH&S needs
- Leadership Non-reprisal policy and evidence it is communicated
- Leadership Health and safety committee terms of reference
Where clause 5.1 commonly fails
- Leadership demonstrated only by signing the policy
- No protection from reprisal for reporting
- Culture programme absent, safety seen as the safety officer's job
What to do about clause 5.1 before the guidance lands
Take three leadership decisions into the management review: the remote equipment budget, the manager check-in time and the anti-reprisal route for remote reports. Record the decision, the resource and the owner, and test the reporting route with a remote worker.
For clause 5.1, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 5.1 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 5.1 remote working preparation is an extension of the existing duty to a group of workers the system already covers, not a new system and not a reason to rebuild around a draft.
Read across from clause 5.1
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 5.1 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 5.1: ISO 45001:2018, clause 5.1, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 5.1 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 5.1 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.