Worksafe at Schools: Creating a Health and Safety Framework for Schools

Action Guide 1: Creating A Health And Safety Framework For Schools

Introduction

Statements about health and safety need to be included in school policies and annual plans, to support the development of a health and safety focused school culture and to ensure the school will meet its responsibilities as an employer. Health and safety statements demonstrate the Board of Trustees and senior school management's commitment to staff welfare and set standards to measure performance in health and safety.

Health and Safety Policy

Each school must have a documented Health and Safety Policy.

The Health and Safety Policy provides a framework to achieve health and safety goals within the school. The Policy should be authorised by the Board of Trustees (the Employer). An example Health and Safety Policy is available in Action Guide 1, Toolkit 4A.

Senior school management should designate specific health and safety coordination roles. Ongoing review of the performance of staff against their assigned responsibilities or objectives should be addressed periodically.

The Health and Safety Policy must be reviewed by school management every two years.

Requirements of Policy

The Health and Safety Policy must reflect the following:

• The Board's commitment to comply with relevant health and safety legislation
• Board of Trustees and Principal's responsibilities for health and safety
• Staff responsibilities for health and safety
• Schools delegation of health and safety coordination roles to staff as appropriate
• Support for staff participation and consultation on health and safety
• School commitment to accurate reporting and recording
• Reporting to the Board of Trustees on accident frequencies and severity (see Action Guide 7, Toolkit 10F)
• Reporting of serious harm injuries to OSH and the Ministry of Education
• School commitment to continuous improvement and encourage best practice in health and safety management
• The school's commitment to support the safe and early return to work of injured employees

There will be an ongoing requirement for further development of policies or guidelines as issues arise or during any review process. Depending on the nature of the issue, this policy will be approved by the Board of Trustees.

Staff Consultation Process

Boards of Trustees must have records that demonstrate a commitment to consultation with staff, union and employee representatives regarding health and safety management and reflect this commitment in the Health and Safety Policy

Continuous Improvement

Boards of Trustees must demonstrate commitment to continuous improvement in health and safety and ensure excellence in health and safety management and innovation by staff is formally recognised. This commitment must be reflected in the Health and Safety Policy.

Relationship with Other Plans and Documents

The Health and Safety Policy stems from the school's mission statement and strategic plan, and should be expressed in a specific Health and Safety Policy statement, consistent with the Ministry of Education National Administration Guideline (NAG) 5, which states:

"Each Board of Trustees is required to;

i. Provide a safe physical and emotional environment for students
ii. Comply in full with any legislation currently in force or that may be developed to ensure the safety of students and employees"

The Health and Safety Policy also needs to be consistent with the Ministry of Education's Health and Safety Code of Practice for State Integrated Primary, Composite and Secondary Schools.

Roles and Responsibilities

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities will help create an effective health and safety system.

An important aspect of these roles and responsibilities is the requirements and duties imposed by the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002 and associated legislation, including identifying how duties may be delegated. Attention to requirements and duties will help ensure that a school is meeting its basic legal obligations.

In addition to the legal requirements, the key operational roles and responsibilities in managing a health and safety system are covered in this section

Ministry of Education

The Ministry is responsible for prescribing minimum health and safety standards for schools. Under the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002, and in some situations, the Ministry may have a duty as a `Principal of Contract' (which means the party that engages the contractor) to take all practicable steps to ensure no contractor or subcontractor is harmed while doing work they are engaged to do.

Board of Trustees

In general terms the Board has overall governance responsibility for health and safety in the school and is responsible for providing resources to enable staff, students and others to carry out their health and safety duties. This means that the Board of Trustees:

• As an Employer - must take all practicable steps to provide and maintain a safe working environment, provide facilities for staff, ensure plant and equipment are safe to use, ensure employees are not exposed to hazards, provide procedures for dealing with an all hazard approach and emergencies. As employers they are also required to identify, assess and control hazards; inform and train employees; record and investigate injuries and report serious harm incidents to employees.
• As Principal of contract (which means the party that engages the contractor) - take all practicable steps to ensure no contractor or sub-contractor is harmed while doing any work they were engaged to do.
• As Persons who control a place of work - take all practicable steps to ensure that no one in the school or vicinity is harmed by any hazard.
• Provide facilities as outlined in Health and Safety in Employment legislation, e.g. lighting, toilets, drinking water, cleanliness, first aid, and storage of chemicals.
• Apply for indemnity from Ministry for uncontrollable hazards
• Provide a safe physical and emotional environment for staff and students and comply with health and safety legislation
• Are responsible for and have liability for any unsafe actions by staff, visitors and contractors operating under their control

Principal

The Principal (and senior management) are responsible for implementing the health and safety policy and systems as delegated by the Board of Trustees, and for management of the school in compliance with Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002.

Health and Safety Coordinator

The Health and Safety Co-ordinator (or equivalent member of school management such as a principal) is responsible to the Principal for the day-to-day management of health and safety including:

Preparing the annual Health and Safety Plan along with staff for Board approval
Managing the implementation of the approved Health and Safety Plan
Maintaining and updating health and safety procedures and taking all necessary actions to ensure that procedures are correctly implemented throughout the school (through the Principal)
Providing health and safety performance reports to the Principal or Board of Trustees
Ensuring that the school has elected the Health and Safety Committee
Arranging Health and Safety Committee meetings
Ensuring safety information is clearly displayed in all work areas

Health and Safety Committee

The Health and Safety Committee (which provides a formal mechanism for staff involvement) is responsible for taking all appropriate steps to assist the Health and Safety Co-ordinator and the school achieve continuous improvement in health and safety performance.

Schools may want to consider discussing health and safety as an integral part of regular weekly/monthly staff meetings. This would enable health and safety issues to be addressed with all staff and provides a demonstration of management commitment to the process.

Teachers and Support Staff

Teaching and support staff are responsible for:

• Correctly implementing school health and safety procedures
• Complying with the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002 duties as employees (ensuring no action or inaction causes harm to anyone else), report hazards and incidents
• Taking all practicable steps to ensure their own safety at work
• Complying with health and safety responsibilities set by the Health and Safety Co-ordinator

Students and Visitors

Students and visitors are responsible for:

• Ensuring that no action or inaction of theirs causes harm to themselves or any other person
• Complying with school policy, plans, and operating/implementation procedures
• Following reasonable instructions of all staff

Contractors

Contractors are responsible for:

• Complying with the HSE Act duties as employer, self employed, principal of contract, or person who controls a place of work (as relevant)

Legal Obligations

EMPLOYER DUTIES

The Employers' principal duty is "to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of staff while at work". In particular, they are to take all practicable steps to:

• Provide and maintain a safe working environment for staff
• Provide and maintain facilities for the safety and health of staff while they are at work
• Ensure staff are not exposed to hazards arising at work
• Develop procedures for dealing with emergencies that may arise while staff are at work

STAFF DUTIES

All staff must take all practicable steps to ensure their own safety at work and also ensure no action or inaction by them causes harm to any other person (Action Guide 1).

INVOLVEMENT OF STAFF

All staff must have the opportunity to be fully involved in the development and evaluation of health and safety programmes (Action Guide 6).

HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVE

Staff must nominate a person to represent their interests in matters relating to health and safety (Action Guide 6).

REGULAR ASSESSMENT OF HAZARDS

Hazards must be regularly assessed to determine whether they are significant. A hazard will be significant if:

• It is an actual or potential cause or source of serious harm
• It is a cause or source of harm, which increases with exposure to the hazard or which occur some time after exposure to the hazard (Action Guide 4).

CONTROL OF SIGNIFICANT HAZARDS

Significant hazards should be eliminated where practicable:

• If their elimination is not reasonably practicable they must be isolated
• If their isolation is not reasonably practicable they must be minimised as reasonably practicable (Action Guide 4).

MONITORING HAZARDS

When significant hazards cannot be eliminated or isolated, the risk of harm must be minimised and monitored.

Staff must be monitored (with their consent) to assess the effect of any workplace hazards. Staff must also be given any relevant results on monitoring of their work environment. The results should not include any information about an individual staff member or which identifies any other staff member. (Action Guide 4).

EVALUATION

Schools must evaluate the workplace on an ongoing basis e.g. annually, to ensure hazards are identified and controlled (Action Guide 4).

SCHOOL FACILITIES

The Health and Safety Regulations require an employer to provide certain facilities at the place of employment (Action Guide 1).

EMERGENCIES

Schools must put in place emergency procedures. All staff must know what to do in an emergency (Action Guide 2).

ORIENTATION, TRAINING AND SUPERVISION

All staff must be:

• Informed of the hazards in their workplace
• Instructed how to eliminate, isolate, or minimise the potential for harm to them or others
• Informed of what to do if an emergency arises while they are at work or using equipment (including motor vehicles) at work
• Informed where all safety equipment is kept

All information to staff must be given in such a way that every staff member is likely to understand it.

Schools are required to do everything practicable to ensure that every staff member, either;

Has sufficient knowledge and experience of the work they are doing that they are not likely to cause harm to themselves or to anyone else, or,
Is supervised by another person with that knowledge and experience
Schools are also required to do all they practicably can to ensure that every staff member is adequately trained to safely use any equipment (including motor vehicles), which they use in their work (Action Guide 5).

DUTIES OWED TO OTHER PERSONS

Schools owe duties to people other than just their own staff. These include taking all practicable steps to ensure that:

• No action or inaction by any of staff while at work harms any other person.
• If the school is in charge of a place of work or piece of equipment (including motor vehicles) that people at their premises, or in the vicinity of their premises are not harmed by any hazard arising in their workplace.
• When the school hires a contractor, that the contractor or subcontractor or their employee is not harmed while doing the contracted work.
• The school warns anyone who they authorise to be at their place of work of any significant hazard (Action Guide 8)

RECORDING AND REPORTING OF INJURIES

Schools are required to keep an injury register with details of all injuries or incidents. The school must notify OSH (Department of Labour) as soon as possible after any injury where there is serious harm, and notify them within 7 days using the prescribed form (Action Guide 7).

LEAVE THE INJURY SCENE UNDISTURBED

If a person is seriously harmed at work then staff must leave the injury scene undisturbed unless:

• Otherwise authorized by an OSH inspector, or
• Staff must do so to save someone's life, prevent further harm, or to relieve someone's suffering
• Staff must do so to maintain access for the general public to an essential service or utility
• Staff must do so to prevent serious damage to or loss of property (Action Guide 7)

SMOKE-FREE ENVIRONMENT

The Smoke-free Environment Act requires employers to:

• Have a written policy on smoking in the workplace prominently displayed
• Review the policy annually
• Consult with employees, or their representative, when formulating and reviewing the policy
• Give the written policy on request to any employee, prospective employee or their representative
• Implement the policy
• Display clear signs indicating where people may or may not smoke (Action Guide 1)

The Health And Safety In Employment Amendment Act

On the 5th May 2003 the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002 came into effect, replacing the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

The Amendment Act introduced key changes to:

• Oblige employers to ensure that staff have reasonable opportunity to participate in the management of OSH at work and provide 2 days health and safety training per year for elected Health and Safety Representatives
• Oblige employees to show good faith in cooperating to develop an "employee participation" system with some rights for elected Health and Safety Representatives to play a leadership role
• Extend definition of "harm" to include mental harm arising from mental or physical fatigue (e.g., stress)
• Set out the rights of employees to refuse work likely to cause serious harm
• Impose a duty on those who sell or supply equipment to ensure that it is safe for the intended work purpose
• Increase the penalties for serious harm under Section 49 to $500,000 and/or 2 years imprisonment
• Increase penalties for other serious harm charges to $250,000
• Remove the crown monopoly on prosecution where OSH has decided not to prosecute
• Introduce "spot fines" (ranging from $100 to $4,000) for individuals or organisations in cases of failure to identify hazards
• Make it illegal to insure against fines imposed by the HSE Act. Employers can, however, insure against the cost of defending a prosecution
• Confirm that the Act covers people who are mobile while they work
• Confirm that the Act covers volunteers carrying out work activities and "loaned employees".

Offences and Penalties

The Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002 creates two types of offence. The first type is where a person either:

1. Takes an action forbidden by the Act knowing that it was reasonably likely to cause death or serious harm
2. Fails to take an action required by the Act knowing that inaction was reasonably likely to cause death or serious harm.

On conviction for this type of offence the maximum fine is $500,000 and the maximum term of imprisonment is 2 years. This is the most serious type of offence as it is committed with knowledge that serious harm is likely to result.

The second type of offence arises where a person fails to comply with any provisions of the Act or Regulations. On conviction for this type of offence there is no penalty of imprisonment. The maximum fine is $250,000.

Additionally, an injury does not have to occur before a school can be prosecuted. For a school to be prosecuted it is not necessary for OSH to prove that a school intended to breach the Act.

Only OSH inspectors can institute prosecutions and for a conviction to occur there must be proof that the failure to comply was through some fault or neglect, as well as proof of non-compliance with the Act.

Indemnity Against Costs Of Prosecution

It is now no longer possible to be insured against fines for prosecutions. In the past the Ministry provided an indemnity for Boards against the payment of any fine arising from any prosecution under the Act or Regulations. This is no longer possible following a new provision in the Amendment Act. The Ministry can no longer indemnify Boards and you cannot take out insurance to protect yourself against these fines (section 56I).

The purpose of this provision is to make sure people take all possible steps to keep the work place safe. They will be less vigilant if they are able to insure themselves against the consequences.

It is still possible to take out insurance for the cost of defending a prosecution or to cover any reparation ordered to be paid to a victim by the Court. However, instead of insuring against the risk of prosecution you are better to avoid tragedies by investigating in systems to identify and manage hazards and thus prevent harm.