Clause 5.3: Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
Top management makes sure that, for the relevant roles in the OH&S management system, responsibilities and authorities are given out and made known at every level, and are kept as documented information.
What clause 5.3 asks
Top management makes sure that, for the relevant roles in the OH&S management system, responsibilities and authorities are given out and made known at every level, and are kept as documented information. At every level, workers take responsibility for those parts of the system they control. Top management gives responsibility and authority for making sure the system conforms to the standard and for reporting to top management on how the system performs.
Responsibility has to sit with the people who control the work, not only with the safety function. The clause also requires a named route to top management for conformity and performance.
Name the remote worker, the manager and the support functions. Remote work spreads the practical work across the worker, the line manager, HR, IT, facilities and the health and safety function. The public consultation frames the guidance as shared responsibility, which only works when each role is written down. The worker's duty to follow the arrangements does not remove the organization's duty to provide them.
Basis: BSI, BSI Standards Development. For clause 5.3, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 5.3 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 5.3
An auditor will ask a line manager and a supervisor what they are accountable for, then compare the answer with the matrix.
- Roles and responsibilities Documented responsibility matrix for OH&S roles at all levels
- Roles and responsibilities Job descriptions with OH&S accountabilities
- Roles and responsibilities Named person responsible for conformity and performance reporting
- Roles and responsibilities Communication records
Where clause 5.3 commonly fails
- Responsibilities assigned to the safety function only
- Line managers' OH&S accountabilities not written down
- No defined reporting route to top management
What to do about clause 5.3 before the guidance lands
Rewrite the responsibility matrix by role: who approves a remote arrangement, who assesses the workspace, who supplies equipment, who checks in, who investigates a remote incident and who owns the record. Include remote workers and their representatives in the review.
For clause 5.3, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 5.3 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 5.3 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 5.3
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 5.3 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 5.3: ISO 45001:2018, clause 5.3, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 5.3 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 5.3 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.