Health and safety governance (leadership)

Creating a safety-conscious culture requires visible leadership.

Your school’s leadership should set the direction of health and safety management in the kura or school.

Any health and wellbeing programmes put in place should ensure that everyone can proactively manage their health and wellbeing.

The emphasis should be on creating a health and safety culture where everyone actively considers the wellbeing and physical safety of all.

Keep reading to learn more.

What are your board’s responsibilities?

Your board has a primary duty to exercise due diligence to ensure that the school or kura complies with its health and safety duties and obligations.

It is a fundamental part of a board’s overall risk management function.

Failure to appropriately manage health and safety risks can have financial implications and potentially damage lives and reputations.

Under section 127 of the Education Act 2020open_in_new, your board must ensure that the school is a physically and emotionally safe place for all students and staff.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015open_in_new (HSWA) also emphasises the need for boards to manage critical risks to reduce workplace harm actively.

Section 73 of the Public Service Act 2020open_in_new also requires boards to comply with the principles of being a good employer.

As a PCBU, your board must also ensure (as far as reasonably practicable) that the school and its grounds, the means of entering or exiting the school grounds, and anything arising from the school activities is without risks to the health and safety of anyone concerned.

Boards usually formally delegate (in writing) the implementation of health and safety policies to the principal, who develops appropriate procedures and practices to ensure obligations and expectations are met.

Note: Whilst your board may delegate some of its functions and powers, it can never delegate its accountability.

What is a PCBU?

A PCBU is a “person conducting a business or undertaking”, usually a legal or corporate entity.

In the case of a kura or school, the board is the PCBU, and the board members are officers of the PCBU.

As board members (and officers of the PBCU), you have considerable influence over ensuring that everything reasonably practicable is done to keep everyone healthy and safe.

The role of the PCBU is a crucial role defined by the law.

What is due diligence, and what are my responsibilities as an officer of the PCBU?

Due diligence requires board members to act collectively (as officers of the PCBU) to take reasonable steps to understand the school’s operational health and safety risks and ensure they are managed appropriately.

The HSWA says officers must take reasonable steps to do the following:

Know about worker engagement, health and safety matters, and keep up-to-date.
Gain an understanding of your school's operations and the hazards and risks generally associated with those operations.
Ensure your board has appropriate resources and processes to recognise, eliminate or minimise those hazards and associated risks.
Ensure your board has appropriate processes for receiving information about incidents, hazards and risks and responding to that information.
Ensure your board has and implements processes for complying with any duty or obligation of the board.
Verify that these resources and processes are in place and being used.

Board members should obtain enough health and safety knowledge to ask the right questions of the right people.

Note: Your board and the principal may be liable if they fail to comply with or are found to have breached their legislative responsibilities.

It’s also important to note that board members are not personally liable for failing to comply with the officer’s due diligence obligations.

That is, the board can be individually prosecuted, but not those individuals making up the board. The exception to this is the role of the principal, who, as the CEO of the school or kura, is an officer of the PCBU, as per Section 18 clause (b) of the HSWA 2015.

How does your board ensure it meets its health and safety obligations?

Setting an effective health and safety culture requires everyone to be actively involved.

Therefore, your board must actively engage with school staff when developing and outlining the expectations it has for the school.

There must also be clear expectations regarding contractors working on the school site to ensure that no one is put at risk from work carried out at the school.

There are four key elements to ensure these obligations are met:

Develop, review, and regularly update the health and safety policies and procedures with input from staff and students (where appropriate).
Include provisions regarding staff time, training, and physical resources for monitoring and reporting (including reporting near misses and incidents that caused harm).
Ensure effective communication and promotion of these policies to all employees, volunteers, parents, and students.
Ensure all reasonable and practicable steps are taken regarding hazard and risk identification, assessment, and management through monitoring and reporting.

What information does your board need to provide to ensure a healthy and safe school environment?

Leadership is a critical element of workplace safety culture.

Your board sets the direction for health and safety oversight and management by setting expectations in the policy.

Policies and procedures should be used as a guide to the work of the board, principal, and employees.

These should explicitly outline that everyone is responsible for their health and safety and for creating an emotionally and culturally safe work environment.

Also, all employees are encouraged and feel safe to raise concerns or identify risks to wellbeing, health and safety with management.

What reporting should your board receive from the principal?

Your board and principal are responsible for ensuring all school staff abide by and follow health and safety policies, procedures and processes as intended.

Therefore, your board should ensure the principal adequately reports on health and safety issues.

This includes anything that could impact student or staff wellbeing, as well as trends, patterns, and reported ‘near misses’ highlighted by the school’s ongoing risk assessments.

Your board should actively review and evaluate the severity, trends, and patterns identified in the principal’s reports so it can take appropriate actions to identify, eliminate or minimise those risks.

Questions your board could ask

Has our board identified its health, safety and wellbeing responsibilities as they apply to our governance role?
Has our board identified the responsibilities as they apply to the management role of the principal?
Does our board have a health and safety policy that includes wellbeing?
Do we know how to undertake a “gap analysis”?
How do we know that we have positive worker engagement?
Does our board ensure engagement with all workers across the school when assessing the effectiveness of our health and safety policy?
Does our board’s policy align with our school values to promote an effective, emotionally and physically safe culture within the school, and how do we know?
Is an induction programme in place for new board members (including a new principal) that includes health and safety obligations and for staff that clearly outlines our school's health, safety and wellbeing culture?
Is health and safety regularly on our board agenda, and are we asking the right questions?

Is wellbeing, health, and safety openly discussed at all levels throughout the school?
Are our employees encouraged to speak up when they feel unsafe or notice potential risks to health and wellbeing?
How is our board assured that all staff have the training and skills to provide an emotionally and physically safe working environment for all?
Does our board receive enough information through reporting from the principal to be confident and assured that our school provides a safe work environment for all staff, students, and others?

Templates, resources, and references

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