[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 5]
[Revised as of July 1, 2005]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR1908.9]

[Page 85-86]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
CHAPTER XVII--OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT 
                                OF LABOR
 
PART 1908_CONSULTATION AGREEMENTS--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 1908.9  Monitoring and evaluation.

    (a) Assistant Secretary responsibility. A State's performance under 
a Cooperative Agreement will be regularly monitored and evaluated by the 
Assistant Secretary as part of a systematic Federal plan for this 
activity. The Assistant Secretary may require changes as a result of 
these evaluations to foster conformance with consultation policy. If the 
State policies or practices which require change are such that the 
State's assurance of correction of serious hazards and of the 
effectiveness of employers' safety and health programs

[[Page 86]]

is in doubt, the Assistant Secretary may, pending the completion of the 
changes, suspend recognition of a State's consultative visits as a basis 
for exemption from compliance inspection as permitted under Sec. 
1908.7(b)(4).
    (b) Consultant performance--(1) State activity. The State shall 
establish and maintain an organized consultant performance monitoring 
system under the Cooperative Agreement:
    (i) Operation of the system shall conform to all requirements 
established by the Assistant Secretary. The system shall be approved by 
the Assistant Secretary before it is placed in operation.
    (ii) A performance evaluation of each State consultant performing 
consultation services for employers shall be prepared annually. All 
aspects of a consultant's performance shall be reviewed at that time. 
Recommendation for remedial action shall be made and acted upon. The 
annual evaluation report shall be a confidential State personnel record 
and may be timed to coincide with regular personnel evaluations.
    (iii) Performance of individual consultants shall be measured in 
terms of their ability to identify hazards in the workplaces which they 
have visited; their ability to determine employee exposure and risk, and 
in particular their performance under Sec. 1908.6 (e) and (f); their 
knowledge and application of applicable Federal or State statutes, 
regulations or standards; their knowledge and application of appropriate 
hazard correction techniques and approaches; their knowledge and 
application of the requirements of an effective workplace safety and 
health program; and their ability to communicate effectively their 
findings and recommendations and the reasons for them to employers, and 
relevant information, skills and techniques to employers and employees.
    (iv) Accompanied visits to observe consultants during onsite 
consultative visits shall be conducted periodically in accord with a 
plan established in each annual Cooperative Agreement. The State may 
also conduct unaccompanied visits to workplaces which received onsite 
consultation, for the purpose of evaluating consultants. A written 
report of each visit shall be provided to the consultant. These visits 
shall be conducted only with the expressed permission of the employer 
who requests the onsite consultative visit.
    (v) The State will report quarterly to the RA on system operations, 
including copies of accompanied visit reports completed that quarter.
    (2) Federal activity. State consultant performance monitoring as set 
out in Sec. 1908.9(b)(1) shall not preclude Federal monitoring activity 
by methods determined to be appropriate by the Assistant Secretary.
    (c) State reporting. For Federal monitoring and evaluation purposes, 
the State shall compile and submit such factual and statistical data in 
the format and at the frequency required by the Assistant Secretary. The 
State shall prepare and submit to the RA any narrative reports, 
including copies of written reports to employers as may be required by 
the Assistant Secretary.

(Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 
1218-0110)

[49 FR 25094, June 19, 1984, as amended at 54 FR 24333, June 7, 1989]