Posted By Lawrence Hughes hi, I've been away from the forum for a year, the old firm made me redundant a year ago, so I've been enjoying life for a bit. I was happily walking the kids to school and then doing the shopping / riding motorbike / ironing / riding motorbike / etc. . . . and then they started construction works in the school, and old habits die hard and I opened my big mouth so I have been trying to help a new Parent Governor who has been volunteered onto the Safety Committee get started in making sense of the H&S at the school, where to go to get information etc, and there is a bit of confusion as to what their responsibility is. The Policy lists the Governors as having overall responsibilty for H&S, but then there is the Safety Committee (I think its: 1 staff, headmaster, 1 parent governor & 1 other governor). The same Safety Committee appears to be given responsibilty as : - the competent adviser / assistance (reg7), - the governor management committee - the employee consultation committee. Can one group of people assume all these roles? Sorry for being thick, I never got much training in the old job and this is pushing boundaries of my level of knowledge.

Posted By Glyn Atkinson Has the local LEA got any input to this committee? "Competent" means competent under safety legislation terms, and in the eyes of the law, not the ideas of a local authority or committee. How would the parents and others on the committee feel if one of their non-learned decisions led at some point in the future to an accident or incident causing injury or death. Judge - so who exactly voted and sanctioned this course of action? Answer - .........????? Wouldn't be a good one, would it?

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Lawrence I suggest that you study relevant documentation very thoroughly about the liability for assessment and management of risks to employee health and safety in the situation you outline. I was an expert witness in a claim about occupational stress by a teacher and the defendants were jointly both the Head Teacher and the H R Manager who advised him. The claimant won her claim and the H R Manager was profoundly criticised for his ignorance of the relevant law, professing that they had never conducted any assessment of any of 10,000 local authority employees in any of the 12 years since their explicit statutory responsibilty. And the local authority then promoted the H R Manager, endorsing the direct and indirect colossal and avoidable waste of taxpayers' money, which could have been much, much better spent on injury prevention and quality teaching.

Posted By TONY Hi Lawrence I have some good stuff that i previously used joint school policies etc which you may find of use. I will email you them direct. Anyone else wanting them just say