Understanding CoR Training Requirements

The HVNL does not mandate specific training courses. It establishes legal duties instead. These duties apply to anyone who influences road safety outcomes through their decisions or actions — including executives who set delivery timeframes, schedulers who allocate work, loading supervisors who approve configurations, and compliance managers who design systems.

Understanding your duties as a duty holder is the starting point. Training becomes your mechanism for demonstrating due diligence. When an incident occurs, regulators will examine whether you possessed the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfil your duties.

The law establishes primary duties that apply regardless of your specific role, including ensuring your conduct does not cause or contribute to breaches of road transport laws. Executive officers carry additional duties extending to governance and system oversight.

Key points

• The HVNL creates obligations — it does not prescribe a curriculum
• Duties attach to roles and decisions, not job titles alone
• Training is how you demonstrate you understood and could meet those duties
• Chain of Responsibilities: What Australian HVNL Duty Holders Need to Understand

CoR training serves one primary purpose: establishing your capacity to meet due diligence obligations. This means demonstrating you have taken reasonable steps to prevent breaches before they occur.

Training alone does not satisfy due diligence. You need documented systems, regular monitoring, and evidence of consistent application. But training forms the foundational layer.

Regulators expect your training to be current, relevant to your role, and delivered by someone with appropriate expertise. Generic online modules rarely meet this standard for complex operational roles.

A practical CoR consulting review can help identify where your training program aligns with — or falls short of — due diligence expectations. For a structured approach to closing those gaps, see Using a Chartered Risk Lens to Close Chain of Responsibility Gaps.

The remaining three knowledge areas focus on proving compliance and keeping it current.

Documentation and evidence standards

Regulators expect documented evidence of your compliance efforts. Different roles require different documentation: schedulers need evidence of how they allocated work, loading supervisors need records of weight verification, and executives need evidence of system oversight. Your training should provide practical guidance on creating audit trails that demonstrate due diligence without excessive administrative burden.

Supply chain visibility and communication

CoR obligations extend across organisational boundaries. Training should address both upstream communication with customers and consignors, and downstream communication with transport providers and drivers — including contract terms that specify safety expectations, induction processes for new suppliers, and incident reporting protocols.

Continuous improvement systems

Your safety management system requires regular review and refinement based on operational experience and regulatory changes. Training should explain how to establish feedback mechanisms, conduct internal audits, and implement corrective actions when issues emerge — including incident investigation that identifies systemic causes rather than blaming individuals.