Victorian BAR Compliance Guide

Legislative Context

Victorian Government agencies have obligations under the following legislation to identify, assess, and manage asbestos-containing materials (ACM) in buildings they own or occupy:

• Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 — primary duty of care for workplace safety
• Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017 — specific requirements for managing ACM
• VAEA Act 2016 — establishes the Victorian Asbestos Eradication Agency and its functions

WorkSafe Victoria provides guidance on asbestos management obligations. The Victorian Asbestos Eradication Agency (VAEA) administers the Building Asbestos Register (BAR) format as the standard recording template for government buildings.

What is the BAR?

The Building Asbestos Register (BAR) is a standardised Excel spreadsheet maintained by VAEA that government agencies use to record all known or suspected ACM in their buildings. The BAR template has 47 columns (A–AU) organised into functional groups:

ACM Classification

Friability

All ACM must be classified by friability:

Product Taxonomy

The BAR uses a controlled taxonomy for ACM products, organised by friability:

Non-Friable Products (8 Groups):

Friable Products (6 Groups):

Sample Results

Testing results must use the following controlled vocabulary:

BAR Business Rule: If Sample Result is Negative or Assumed Negative, the Condition and Disturbance Potential fields must be set to the corresponding N/A value.

Condition Assessment

Disturbance Potential

How ACM-AI Supports BAR Compliance

Automated Field Population

ACM-AI extracts and populates all 47 BAR columns from consultant PDF reports. Fields that cannot be extracted (Department, Agency, Building Type, Ownership) are configured via the Upload Wizard site configuration step.

Enum Normalisation

Consultant PDFs often use non-standard wording for controlled fields. For example:

• "Low Risk" → normalised to Low (Risk Status)
• "ACM cement" → classified as Product Group T1 (Cement products), Product Type Flat Sheeting
• "N/A Neg" → normalised to N/A (negative) (Condition)

ACM-AI's Stage 2 Interpret pipeline applies a comprehensive normalisation mapping from the register_enums.json configuration file.

BAR-Compliant Export

The Excel export produces a file matching the official BAR template structure:

• All 47 columns in the correct order (A–AU)
• Column headers matching the BAR template exactly
• Controlled vocabulary values for all enum fields
• Optional reference sheets (Building Types, Product Types, Suburbs)

Provenance and Auditability

Every extracted record is linked to:

• The source PDF document (source_id)
• The specific page in the PDF (page_number)
• The raw HTML table from which it was extracted (parent_table_id → acm_table_section)

This audit trail supports compliance audits where the source data must be traceable to the original consultant report.

Organisation Hierarchy

The BAR requires recording the full Victorian Government hierarchy:

Department (e.g. DHHS)
    └── Agency (e.g. Alexandra District Health)
        └── Sub Agency (e.g. specific ward or facility)
            └── Site Name
                └── Building Name
                    └── Room or Area
                        └── ACM Item

Common Victorian Government departments in BAR data:

Removal Tracking

When ACM is removed, the BAR requires documenting:

• PSB Supplied ACM ID — Property Services Branch reference number
• Assumed Removed? — YES/NO flag
• Date of Removal — Date the ACM was removed
• Quantity Removed — Amount removed (e.g. "25 m²")
• Asbestos Removal Notification No — WorkSafe notification reference
• EPA Waste Transport Certificate No — EPA waste disposal certificate number
• Removal Comments — Free text notes

ACM-AI stores all removal tracking fields and includes them in BAR exports. These fields can be updated via the Record Detail Panel or via PUT /api/acm/records/{id}.

Further Reading

• WorkSafe Victoria — Asbestos
• VAEA — Victorian Asbestos Eradication Agency
• OHS Regulations 2017 — Asbestos provisions