Posted By DPK If you were commissioned to audit a large educational facility with many aspects to it including an estates department would you use ISO18001 as the standard, especially as your prior knowledge of the establishment tells you there would possibly be some major none conformance's. The establishment is not ISO certificated. Or would you use another type of audit standard such as HSG65 or OFSTED? The reason for asking is this, should we not be aiming for educational establishments to implement the highest standards of H&S, where as in reality and my experience, academics are not generally comfortable with H&S requirements and find the legislation a hindrance to their teaching. DPK

Posted By Alan Hoskins Surely you can only audit against the performance standards that have been adopted by the organisation? Most colleges will be working to HSG65. Schools most likely will not. Few establishments will be working to 18001 apart from some in HE.

Posted By Alan Hoskins Not quite sure what you said in that last paragraph DPK, but I think the answer is YES. ;-)

Posted By Pete48 DPK, you don't give much detail about the type of establishment but speaking generally within the UK there is already a wealth of guidance and support available for educational establishments, especially so any state funded organisations. The Association of Colleges for example provide a whole range of policy and advisory material including auditing systems. It is only available to members so that may be why you are currently unaware of it? The Learning and Skills Council also have standards for H&S management in funded organisations which includes an auditing regime based on HSG65. The whole purpose of such guidance and support is exactly the same as the standards you have mentioned. The use of HSG65 to define standards is just as apparent within the educational sector as in any other. I doubt that the use of ISO standards is widespread since there is no commercial demand for such external accreditation systems and HMG probably feels it does more relevant assurance work within its own systems of control. However, just as is the case outside the educational sector, the availability of a standard is not a means to assure anything. I would advise that you check to see what standards and systems your establishment currently uses or has access to. I would expect you to find a system available. To suggest that our educational establishments are any different in their approach to H&S is a touch patronising I feel. Some will fail just like in any other sector but they try to meet the same challenges as any other organisation and indeed are required to do so in a much more political environment than many commercial companies.

Posted By martinw DPK having carried out such a large number of inspections for the LSC in the recent past as regional health and safety adviser, we always used HSG 65 as a baseline. If you want, I can send you via overland mail or scan a copy to e-mail of the question prompt sheet which we used to elucidate information and thereby make a judgement as to the H&S provision from the organisation. If you want, I am happy to discuss off forum anything you want to about this. If not, you could let me know what area you are in and I could find out the details of the regional health and safety manager in that area for the LSC. They really are very good, and very helpful. Let me know if I or others can help. Martin

Posted By Bob Howden I work for a local authority and have carried health and safety performance audits in some of our schools over the last two years. My set of audit questions is based on the policies and procedures that they are required to adhere to both Council wide and particular to the educational environment. Therefore in addition to the legislative requirements I also examine their arrangements for things like the administration of medicines and the management of excursions.

Posted By Bill Elliott DPK - during my spell as a school governor I recall there being available a wealth of documentation related to Health & Safety and the Educational Establishment Premises Regulations. If my memory serves me well, a lot of this is available from links on teachernet -a search on google will find it for you - governornet is another link which will give you access to the Law handbook and the standards expected.

Posted By PhilP Bill Funnily enough I nearly put a rant on this forum a couple a months ago about the law guidance for governors you have mentioned. IMO there is virtually no H&S guidance in the document what so ever, the guidance is 242 pages long and 16 of those are set aside for ‘Health, Safety and Welfare’. Those 16 pages are split in to 83 paragraphs. The first 16 or so are fine and talk about Policy, responsibilities, enforcement, the DDA, and educational visits and journeys. After that the person writing the document seems to veer off course; the next 16 paragraphs (2 pages) are on home to school travel, most which is outlining who should get the service for free, this is followed by THREE lines on First Aid arrangements! The same number of lines is then given to litter, then back on course looking at radioactive sources and the management of medicines, which are a paragraph and 8 lines each. 2 pages are then given to ‘School Food and Milk’ this looks at delegation of funding, free meals and nutritional standards (nothing on hygiene). I’ll leave it there, but could keep going. But apparently if you are governor you don’t need to worry about asbestos, legionella, access and egress from or maintenance of buildings/infrastructure, DSE, design and technology or violence and aggression. I presume the guidance is based OFSED standards or similar, all but few points of the guidance cover a very small fraction of the regulative H&S issues in a school and more of the educational standards imposed. Not a read I would recommend for putting together an audit plan. Phil

Posted By Martin J Morley DPK, Yes, your post is justified, but this is a general H&S forum, not an education premises one. Some of the responses have identified Colleges and Univesities as having particular guidance and audit systems in place. If you were looking at Secondary education in the public sector, Local Authorities will have provided guidance, with outline policies and procedures. Whatever the organization, surely the starting point of an audit is whether it complies with its own policies and procedures. Then you might take a view of the effectiveness of those policies and procedures compared with comparable institutions, HSG65 or ISO18001 and then provide recommendations for improvement. You ask whether we should not be aiming for educational establishments to implement the highest standards of H&S. I doubt that any H&S professional would admit to aiming lower, BUT 'so far as is reasonably practical' gives those who hold the purse strings an advantage they often take. In schools, budgets are strongly affected by staff costs so some schools have the money to implement a higher standard than others. My personal experience suggests that academics are not alone in being generally uncomfortable with H&S requirements and finding the legislation a hindrance. The common problem is that they have not been taught H&S, have picked up elf'n safety tips along the way and have lesson plans that therefore need rewriting. There is a wealth of subject specific guidance, as with any work area starting with HSE, for them to easily adopt. I may share some of your reservations, but hope that you will find some pockets of good practice to offset that. regards, martin

Posted By Pete48 DPK. I apologise if I offended you in my response. I was trying to point you towards the wealth of existing guidance available and by that means warn you of the "not another type of audit" response and make the important point that a lot of people try very hard to get H&S right in the face of some severe political pressures and constantly changing goalposts across the whole spectrum of educational standards. To be represented as a group somehow generally negative towards H&S is to misrepresent the truth in my view. Struggling with the reality might be closer. I also know that I could gain similar quotes from any hard pressed group of people trying to work in demanding situations. "trouble with safety mate? It stops us getting the job done". Now where have we heard that before? So, I really do hope that you are successful with your approach and that it brings the improvements that you clearly seek. Good luck.