Facilities and cleaning businesses operating across New South Wales now have a larger and more specialised regulator watching over them, with SafeWork NSW graduating 27 new inspectors this month. Fourteen of the new recruits will be based in metropolitan Sydney, while the remaining 13 will be deployed across the Hunter, Central Coast, Riverina, South Coast, Illawarra and Central West regions, extending the regulator’s reach into areas where cleaning and FM contractors service everything from schools to regional healthcare facilities.
Since becoming a stand-alone regulator on 1 July 2025, SafeWork NSW has recruited 68 new inspectors, its largest five-year intake on record.
Psychosocial focus lands close to home for cleaning employers
Five of the new graduates are dedicated psychosocial inspectors, bringing backgrounds in psychology, workers’ compensation and anti-bullying casework to the role. For an industry that has long grappled with high turnover, shift work pressures and the emotional toll of understaffed sites, the addition signals a sharpened regulatory focus on mental health outcomes that cleaning and FM employers cannot afford to ignore. Managing psychosocial risk is one of SafeWork NSW’s five regulatory priorities, alongside falls from heights, hazardous substances and mobile plant, vehicles and fixed machinery, all of which feature prominently in commercial cleaning operations.
The expansion builds on a $127.7 million four-year investment by the NSW Government into work health and safety outcomes, part of which funds 20 dedicated psychosocial inspectors as part of an overall uplift of 51 inspectors, described as SafeWork NSW’s largest ever increase in inspectorate numbers. The state is also standing up a Psychosocial Advisory Service to give workers and business owners tailored guidance on managing psychosocial safety, building on its position as the first state to introduce a psychosocial code of practice covering all hazards and all workplaces.
Minister for Work Health and Safety and Industrial Relations Sophie Cotsis says the growing recognition of psychological harm is reshaping how workplace safety is regulated. “One of the most significant developments in work health and safety is the growing recognition that psychological harms are as damaging as physical harm,” she says.
SafeWork NSW Commissioner Janet Schorer says the graduating cohort strengthens the regulator’s frontline capability. “Our graduating inspectors strengthen our frontline regulatory capability, ensuring SafeWork NSW remains well-equipped to support workplaces through education, advice, compliance and enforcement activities,” she says.
For cleaning and FM operators, the message is clear. With more inspectors on the ground and psychosocial risk now firmly embedded in compliance activity, businesses that have treated mental health as a secondary concern behind physical safety may soon find it under closer scrutiny.
