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Responsibility for Health and Safety in School
The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 places overall responsibility for health and safety with the employer. Who this is varies with the type of school:
- For community schools, community special schools, voluntary controlled schools, maintained nursery schools and pupil referral units the employer is the Children's Service Authority (CSA)
- For foundation schools, foundation special schools and voluntary aided schools the employer is usually the governing body
- For independent schools the employer is usually the governing body
Education employers have duties to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable:
- the health, safety and welfare of teachers and other education staff
- the health and safety of pupils in-school and off-site visits
- the health and safety of visitors to schools, and volunteers involved in any school activity
The employer must have a Health and Safety policy and arrangements to implement it. Employers must assess the risks of all activities, introduce measures to manage those risks and tell their employees about the measures. In practice, employers may delegate specific health and safety tasks to individuals (eg CSA's may delegate specific tasks to schools) but the employer retains the ultimate responsibility no matter who carries out the tasks.
Examples of Health & Safety issues are:-
Piercings
Security
Intruders
Dangerous structures
For further advice contact the Health and Safety Team who are based at the Bannerdale Centre, 125 Carterknowle Road, Sheffield, S7 2EX
Clare Hallam
Acting Senior Safety Advisor
2930912 or 07711 153436
Sarah Green
Safety Advisor
2930912 or 07711 153437
Alan Rowe
Safety Advisor
2930912 or 07711 153435
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