Posted By Richard Forster
Here in LBWF we are interested in how other LEA's quantify time off for safety reps in school to carry out their functions. Obviously this is an area that is right for negotiation. We are eager to hear from anyone who has agreed standards for Safety Reps working in Nursery, Infant, Junior, Primary, Special Needs, Secondary etc schools. We want to work in partnership with the unions to agree sensible and reasonable timeframes - so this is a kind of benchmarking exercise. If you have agreed standards for your Safety Reps then please get in touch. If you have Safety Reps who cover more than one school, or even a cluster of schools please identify yourself!

Posted By Zoe Barnett
Richard, this gave us a lot of problems because technically we could have a rep from each of three or four unions on the staff of any one school. Schools were naturally very wary of the time and inconvenience of having to accommodate this, and of course the potential for conflict was enormous ("well the NUT said it was okay but UNISON have banned it and the GMB have forbidden members to talk about it...") So from our point of view the letter, if not the spirit, of the regs. was unworkable.

What we are in the process of agreeing is this: that school staff will elect one rep to act on behalf of everyone, regardless of which union, if any, they are in. This person will be seconded to the appropriate committee of the governing body (governors of course having responsibility for H&S in schools.) The rep can then combine his or her inspections/reports/other duties with those of the governors and can also act on behalf of any member of staff with a concern or complaint. It should also sort out the communication problems between staff and governors. Of course only this one person has to have the time off and training. We recognised that some school staff will not want to have a formal rep and that this will be acceptable as long as everyone is aware that they have the right to introduce this system as and when.

Our H&S committee is well attended by the various unions and they are all happy with this (in fact the system was suggested by the NAHT.) If all goes according to plan we should have it in place as a formal system by the end of term.

Hope this gives you some useful food for thought.

Posted By Laurie
Is this not akin to the "roving rep" which the TUC are looking towards?

Laurie