Inspections and audits

The MLC Appendix A5-I items inspected and approved before certification, and the reach of an inspector's document request

MLC, 2006 Appendix A5-I lists sixteen areas to inspect and approve before a Maritime Labour Certificate is issued. Preparation should cover that list and the ship’s declaration of maritime labour compliance.

The sixteen areas cover records held by personnel, payroll, crewing, technical and contract teams. Preparing the inspection requires these records to be available together.

This article maps that list onto the records a company keeps in separate places, and asks how far an inspector may reach into them.

The Appendix asks for approval, not only inspection

The working and living conditions of seafarers that must be inspected and approved by the flag State before certifying a ship in accordance with Standard A5.1.3, paragraph 1:

There are two verbs. inspected and approved. It does not end with an inspector looking and moving on. The flag State has to approve before the certificate is issued. And the moment is pinned down as before certifying a ship. It is a gate that sits ahead of certification.

The list runs as follows.

Minimum age
Medical certification
Qualifications of seafarers
Seafarers’ employment agreements
Use of any licensed or certified or regulated private recruitment and placement service
Hours of work or rest
Manning levels for the ship
Accommodation
On-board recreational facilities
Food and catering
Health and safety and accident prevention
On-board medical care
On-board complaint procedures
Payment of wages
Financial security for repatriation
Financial security relating to shipowners’ liability

Each line names a subject the Convention has already settled somewhere else. The Appendix creates no new obligation. It picks out of the existing ones what has to be verified before the certificate goes out, and gathers those in one place.

Check Convention records and DMLC implementation together

Under A5.1.4 paragraph 1, inspectors check both Convention compliance and implementation of the measures in the DMLC. Endorsement of rest records is not merely an optional company addition: A2.3 paragraph 12 requires daily work or rest records and a copy endorsed by the master or an authorized person and by the seafarer.

Where the DMLC specifies record owners, preparation procedures or review intervals, compare actual records with those procedures too. Distinguish the international obligation from the company’s method of implementing it.

Manage record locations and continuing updates together

Check age, medical fitness, qualifications, agreements, rest and wages for each seafarer; check manning, accommodation, food, water, medical care, safety and complaint arrangements for the ship. Link recruitment-service and financial-security contracts to onboard evidence.

A seafarer’s departure does not automatically end record-retention duties. Equipment, supplies and procedures require continuing maintenance between inspections. Repatriation and shipowner-liability financial-security documents must also meet onboard carriage and conspicuous posting requirements. Keeping every contract record ashore is not sufficient.

An inspector may require books and certificates to be produced

(c) to require the production of any books, log books, registers, certificates or other documents or information directly related to matters subject to inspection, in order to verify compliance with the national laws and regulations implementing this Convention;

This sentence sits in Guideline B5.1.4. It is not mandatory. It is guidance the flag State takes into account. Standard A5.1.4 paragraph 7, however, already gives inspectors the power to carry out any examination, test or inquiry they consider necessary. The Guideline is where that power is spelled out into what it actually calls for.

Other items in the same Guideline widen the reach further. Boarding freely and without previous notice, questioning the master, seafarers, the shipowner and the shipowner’s representative, and taking samples of drinking water, provisions and materials for analysis. That last item runs straight into the food and catering line of the Appendix.

When a sample is taken, the shipowner or the representative is notified or present, and the inspector records the quantity. The reach is wide, and a procedure is attached to it.

When a deficiency turns up, notification comes first

(f) following an inspection, to bring immediately to the attention of the shipowner, the operator of the ship or the master, deficiencies which may affect the health and safety of those on board ship;

The word attached is immediately. Nobody waits for the report. The recipients are named as three: the shipowner, the operator of the ship, the master.

Standard A5.1.4 paragraph 7 then goes one step further. The inspector may require that a deficiency is remedied. And where there are grounds to believe the deficiency is a serious breach of the requirements of the Convention, or a significant danger to seafarers’ safety, health or security, the inspector may prohibit the ship from leaving port until the necessary actions are taken.

The step after that belongs to the flag State.

Adequate penalties and other corrective measures for breaches of the requirements of this Convention (including seafarers’ rights) and for obstructing inspectors in the performance of their duties shall be provided for and effectively enforced by each Member.

Two things are named as targets of the penalties. Breaches of the requirements, and obstruction of inspectors in their duties. The second one being written out separately means that failing to answer the document request seen above is itself a target. The list, the powers and the penalties run in a single line.

Worth confirming

The passages above come from printed pages 88 to 91 and page 102 of the consolidated MLC, 2006 (including the 2022 amendments). Appendix A5-I and Standard A5.1.4 are mandatory; Guideline B5.1.4 is not. What has to be in place under each of the sixteen lines is filled in by flag State law.

What the flag State has written into the DMLC for that ship, whether inspections have been authorized to a recognized organization, and whether inspectors arrive without previous notice are where the actual preparation starts.

Link each inspection item to procedures and actual records

These three examples support preparation for certification; they do not replace the full appendix. Distinguish having a document with the right title from evidence that its procedure was followed.

Inspection item	Company procedure to link	Evidence to compare
Work and rest hours	Applicable limits, record review and adjustment of duties after shortages	Signed actual records, call-out and drill records, subsequent rest
Recruitment and placement	Checking the services used and reviewing charges	Service-compliance evidence and an itemised account of charges to the seafarer
Repatriation financial security	Maintaining cover, carriage and posting, contact arrangements	Valid security document, ship identifiers, actual posting and usable contact details

Trace the national requirements in DMLC Part I through the implementation measures in Part II to actual records. If the procedure promises regular review but the records show none, establish and remedy the missing implementation instead of merely adding a check mark.

You can consult the cited source documents

These links lead to the official publishers of the documents discussed here. Match the edition and provisions cited in the article, and check subsequent amendments and flag-state implementation before applying them.

ILO · MLC, 2006 (2022)

Bellbook keeps the records the Appendix calls for under one ship

The sixteen lines sit apart inside a company, in personnel files, payroll, rest hours and certificates. Bellbook keeps personnel record cards, rest hour entries and certificate expiry dates in one place per ship, so nobody goes looking for paperwork while the inspector works down the list.

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