Ask a workshop who does the WOF label stationery ordering and you'll get an answer — usually a name, sometimes "the office". Ask for the record showing that person was given the task, told what it involves, and accepted it, and the room goes quiet. That gap between everyone knows and it's written down is where delegation findings come from, and they are among the cheapest findings a reviewer can collect. (For where delegation sits in the wider review, see the pillar guide: Preparing for an NZTA QMS audit.)
Two very different kinds of "delegation"
The word does double duty at a WOF site, and conflating the two causes trouble in both directions.
Inspection authority is not delegable. An NZTA appointment belongs to the appointed vehicle inspector or inspecting organisation and can't be handed to someone else except under conditions NZTA specifies in writing. No register entry makes it lawful for an unappointed person to inspect — that side of the line is covered in operating outside authority or scope.
QMS tasks, by contrast, must be delegated — and recorded. Someone orders label stationery. Someone books calibrations. Someone controls documents, handles complaints, keeps the training records, fronts the audit. The NZTA Model QMS lists a delegation record among its master records for exactly this reason: a QMS assigns responsibilities on nearly every page, and responsibilities without named, evidenced owners are promises, not systems.
Why "the office handles that" fails
Most sites do have an answer to who-does-what. The problem is the shape of the answer: it's role-based and assumed, not task-based and accepted.
A role is not a delegation. "The office" doesn't order stationery — a person does, and when that person is on leave or has left, the role answers nothing. Reviewers see the failure mode constantly: a task that was "always Sandra's" stops happening the week Sandra goes, and nothing in the QMS even notices, because nothing in the QMS ever said it was Sandra's.
The second failure is silence at the top. In owner-operated and director-owned sites, the most important delegation in the building — the owner handing QMS management itself to a service manager — is usually the least documented, because the delegator isn't a day-to-day user of the paperwork. A reviewer asking "who owns this QMS, and on whose authority?" is asking for precisely that record.
The third is acceptance. A list of assignments written by a manager proves the manager has a list. It doesn't prove the delegate knows. The strongest delegation evidence shows the task was communicated and acknowledged — the delegate saw the description of what they're taking on and accepted it, on a date, in writing.
What a kept delegation record looks like
One entry per task, per person. Each entry carries:
- The task, named consistently — label custody, stationery ordering, calibration bookings, document control, complaints handling, training records, audit liaison, conflict-of-interest register.
- A description of what the delegate is actually responsible for — the text they accept, not just a label.
- The delegator, by name and role — including people above the roster, like a director.
- The delegate, by name, with the date it took effect and a review date if one applies.
- Acknowledgement — evidence the delegate accepted it.
- History. When a task moves, the old entry is revoked and retained and a new one created. An overwritten register shows the present; a kept register shows the site has managed ownership over time, which is the thing a reviewer is actually assessing.
The test to apply is the same one that works for every register an IO must keep: could you hand it over right now, current and complete — and would each person named in it recognise what they own?
Stop keeping it in heads
This register fails quietly because nothing in the workshop breaks when it goes stale — until a departure, a dispute, or a review. It's also tedious to maintain by hand, which is why it rarely is.
WoFMate's QMS Compliance Centre keeps the delegation register per task and per person: each delegation is created with the description the delegate will accept, and revoked entries are retained so the history is always one screen away. On the Complete plan the acknowledgement loop runs itself: the delegation lands in the delegate's portal queue, locks once accepted, and the acceptance is written to their training record automatically.
However you keep it, keep it written. The day someone asks "who owns this?", the answer shouldn't depend on who's in the room.