There are different ways of doing audits. Some are purely based on a standard checklist with yes and no answers. Others are as you describe, testing how policies and procedures are implemented in practice. The key to the latter kind of audit is preparation and planning. First find any relevant documentation and then prepare some questions based on it. Taking repairs as an example, you might find out for example that there are certain checks that the tradespeople are supposed to do and record. To audit this, you would ask to speak to an electrician, a plumber etc and ideally shadow them on a job and see if they do and record these checks. Failing that you would meet them and ask them questions like 'talk me through how you go about a job'. Then, you would ask to see the records of the checks for a recent job, and find out the extent to which the records exist or not. You would also look at whether the checks and the records were adding value ('has anything turned up on a check that has changed what you did on the job?'). And so on. But don't try to do too much per audit, focus on a few critical things and find out if they are being done properly.

I like Kate's advice . . Audits are 'an in depth scrutiny against a defined standard'. In other words, are we doing what we say we will? They are not inspections, tours, checks, or sampling. There has to be a defined standard - eg. against specified policy, legislation (choose that one carefully) or procedural standards. My practical suggestion would be to try 'mini-auditing' first, and get going ASAP. Possibly ask what aspects of 'H&S' are of particular concern (or you just choose). Then audit that topic across the areas they suggest, although these are quite significant departments of a HA. For example: how are we doing against our incident reporting procedure? Read, re-read and analyse the procedure(s). Decide if various levels of questions are required - for managers, for first-aiders, or for anyone randomly chosen. Reformat the text of the procedure into a few critical questions, segregated as above - and you are nearly ready. Make appointments, and ask for any documentation to be readily available (never will be BTW!). There is no real need to invent a complicated scoring procedure. Keep the questions to a minimum, and ideally a nice round number for any percentages later! You will form an impression during the audit, your report can be very simple, and help managers (the 'they' you refer to) to decide what to do - your own recommendations will no doubt be asked for. You may get very different responses from the two sections you mention. It doesn't usually work that well to compare different area against each other. The repairs side is where construction-related checklists may also help, but they are often just questions off the top of heads, not from a specific standard. The questions need to have a real purpose, not just 'is the safety policy dated?' Have a few goes, learn as you go along, then start to widen your scope. Do not go on a training course first! Later when you have figured out a few things, and can relate to such a course better, maybe. Enjoy.