Professional divers carry out work underwater every day. This involves civil works such as lock maintenance and underwater welding. But professional divers also work at the Ministry of Defence, Dutch Customs and the fire service.
Diving work involves several risks. Depending on the situation, divers have to deal with tight spaces, heavy equipment, ship traffic or tight time windows.
Personal registration
Due to the risks involved in diving, anyone who is a professional diver must be registered as such. This also applies to the dive team leader, the dive medical supervisor and the diver doctor.
- For civil diving work, it is mandatory to be registered in the Civil Diving Work Register of the Dutch Divecentre Registration Institution.
- Fire brigade and police divers register in the Fire Brigade and Police Diving Work Register (Dutch) of the Netherlands lnstitute for Public Safety (NIPV).
- Diving professions in the Ministry of Defence are registered by the Minister of Defence (Dutch).
Diving work by volunteers
The rules for professional divers also apply to volunteers doing diving work.
There are all kinds of voluntary diving work, including observing what goes on underwater and cleaning up debris or other materials underwater.
Joint responsibility for safe diving
To carry out professional diving activities safely, several parties are involved, each with their own responsibilities:
- The diving company is responsible for compliance with rules such as working conditions regulations and the rules of the relevant registration scheme. In certain situations, the diving company must report the diving operations (Dutch) to the Netherlands Labour Authority.
- The registration holder is a diver, dive team leader, dive medical supervisor or diver doctor who is professionally registered for their role. Registration holders are responsible for performing the work for which they are registered safely.
- A diving registration is issued by registering institutions (Ris) that have been mandated for this purpose by the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment. In the case of the Ministry of Defence, it is the Minister of Defence who arranges the registration of Ministry of Defence employees.
- The scheme manager develops registration schemes that define the level of diving examinations. Stichting Werken onder OverDruk (Dutch) is the scheme administrator for diving work.
- The Labour Authority monitors the functioning of this registration system. lt also supervises employers and employees who carry out diving work; to this end, it carries out inspections, handles reports of dangerous situations and investigates diving accidents. lt also consults with industry parties to help improve safety.
The Labour Authority is not the only supervisory authority for diving work. For diving work required in mineral extraction, the Dutch State Supervision of Mines is the supervisory authority. This kind of diving work includes diving operations at drilling rigs. Diving operations when building offshore wind turbines also fall under their supervision.
Risks, approach and impact
Curious about what risks the Labour Authority sees, how these are to be approached and their impact? See the page Diving work: risks, approach and impact.