Statewide Safety, Centralised Control: Transforming Asbestos Management Across Government Assets

Overview

The Tasmanian Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) are responsible for maintaining public school buildings across the entire state, which meant managing asbestos was complex and critical. Working in both a centralised and decentralised maintenance model, where individual schools could also independently engage contractors or perform minor works, presented the additional challenge of ensuring consistent and compliant asbestos management. The DECYP needed a solution that offered visibility, accountability and compliance across all maintenance activities.

To address this need, DECYP partnered with Octfolio, a secure, cloud-based, and centralised asbestos management platform. Octfolio empowered the DECYP to strengthen compliance, improve risk communication, and provide a single source of truth for all stakeholders involved, from contractors and facilities employees to on-site volunteers.

Challenge

Before adopting Octfolio, every site in the asset portfolio relied on hard-copy registers. These fragmented records led to process gaps, safety risks, and limited visibility, which hindered the ability to manage asbestos risk effectively across diverse teams and locations.

• Each site kept its own hard-copy asbestos register, leading to inconsistent records, delayed data access, and increased risk, particularly during urgent maintenance or incidents.
• Low visibility for remote decision-making meant facilities staff had limited confidence that on-site teams were consulting asbestos registers before starting work.
• With maintenance done by contractors, staff, and volunteers, it was difficult to ensure consistent asbestos management practices.
• During incidents or regulatory reviews, it was hard to confirm whether the right asbestos information had been accessed and understood on-site.

Solution

To address these challenges, DECYP implemented Octfolio to transform their asbestos management from reactive and paper-based, to proactive and cloud-based. Octfolio ensured that every stakeholder had real-time access to the same, up-to-date information, eliminating discrepancies and streamlining processes.

The platform provided:

• Online asbestos register access via site-specific landing pages, providing all stakeholders, including contractors and volunteers with instant access to the latest asbestos data.
• Audit trails and system access logs to track usage and identify areas for process improvement or additional training.
• Shared visibility between central and site-based teams, allowing DECYP staff to view and verify the same asbestos data as those on-site within minutes.
• Upfront planning support for capital works, enabling early asbestos risk identification and more accurate budgeting during project scoping.
• Scalability to accommodate future hazardous materials aligned with evolving regulatory landscapes.

Results

By centralising asbestos data and enabling faster, more informed decision-making, Octfolio helped the DECYP streamline compliance and asbestos management across both centralised and decentralised maintenance models.

• Risk reduction and peace of mind, with real-time access to asbestos data reducing incidents and increasing confidence among stakeholders.
• Faster resolution of asbestos queries with facilities staff responding to enquiries within minutes, using the same up-to-date information as schools and contractors – eliminating guesswork.
• Process improvement insights, with system access logs highlighting areas for improvement, driving targeted training and continuous operational refinement.
• Capital cost savings, by sharing asbestos data early in project planning, avoiding costly surprises, and ensuring more accurate budgeting.
• Assurance in health and safety compliance with software allowing proper asbestos management, protecting employees, contractors, and the public, particularly those in schools.
• Confidence in regulatory compliance with various WHS regulations and standards.
• Ongoing platform refinement and strong partnership with Octfolio, ensuring the platform evolves to meet the DECYP's operational needs.