Health and Safety Committees
Each school should have its own Health and Safety Committee. This should meet at least termly, but there may be circumstances where additional meetings are required. The purpose of the committee is to represent members who work in the school and to ensure that issues raised are resolved or reduced to as low as practicable.
The exact membership of the committee will vary from school to school, but should have representatives from both management and ideally all Unions that are recognised within the school. The management representative(s) should include the person who has responsibility for Health and Safety. This is normally the Head teacher.
The work of the committee will normally fall into two categories, proactive and reactive.
Proactive work would be tasks such as identifying hazards within the school. These could stem from activities that have some form of risk, such as PE or practical subjects/lessons and these should be covered by completing a Risk Assessment. This should be done involving a member of staff who will engage in the activity and either a line manager or member of management. The Risk Assessment should be signed off by a member of staff who has undertaken the appropriate Stirling Council Risk Assessment training.
A blank Stirling Council Risk Assessment form can be found here.
Additional information on Stirling Council Risk Assessment procedures can be found here.
Other examples may be resolving hazards that arise from the fabric of the building and school grounds, the introduction of new equipment and/or machinery, or the introduction of new working methods. Again, a Risk Assessment approach should be taken.
Reactive would be looking at any incidents that do occur and reviewing what Risk Assessment was in place at the time and working together to see if additional work is required to help reduce the likelihood of that incident happening again.
The Union representative will normally be the EIS Rep (or Reps) within the school, although an additional EIS Union member may take on this role as a distinct Health and Safety Rep.
Staff or Union Reps who are involved in the work of the Health and Safety committee are encouraged to undertake the EIS Health and Safety Rep training. Members interested in undertaking this two day training course should contact our Secretary Ann Skillen in the first instance. stirling@eis.org.uk
Members may also find the following publications helpful.
National EIS Guidance - Health and Safety Handbook 2015
Health and Safety Executive - Health and Safety Law
Health and Safety Executive - Health and Safety Law Leaflet
