Equipment

Schools are responsible for providing all appropriate equipment for all work environments that workers and students are likely to encounter and ensuring that the equipment meets appropriate design standards.

Boards must also provide appropriate protective equipment for all work environments that your staff are likely to encounter in their roles.

What are your board’s responsibilities?

The PCBU must, among other things, provide a safe and healthy environment for workers, including access to facilities.

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.

Note: The board as an entity can be liable under the Act if it does not exercise its duty of care.

How can you demonstrate leadership in this area?

Leadership is a critical element of a workplace health and safety culture.

Leadership sets the direction for health and safety management by creating and demanding expectations and holding management strictly and continuously to account for meeting these expectations.

Why are boards responsible?

A school is governed by individuals who, through their decision-making, influence the specific activities that will, in turn, ensure the success or failure of health and safety initiatives and whether your board is complying with its duty.

The due diligence of individual board members and the principal supports but does not replace your board’s primary duty of care to ensure the health and safety of workers and others.

Due diligence places a positive duty on people at the governance level of an organisation to actively engage in health and safety matters, reinforcing that health and safety is everyone’s responsibility.

What must the PCBU do?

The PCBU must also ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that they:

Provide and maintain a work environment, plant, and systems that are without risks to health and safety,
Ensure the safe use, handling, and storage of the plant, structures, and substances,
Provide adequate facilities at work for the welfare of workers, including ensuring access to those facilities, and
Provide information, training, instruction, or supervision necessary to protect workers and others from risks to their health and safety.

Questions your board could ask

What policies are in place, and are they regularly reviewed?
Is health and safety a fixed agenda item for our board meetings?
Do board members actively engage with health and safety matters?
Does our board understand the school’s operations and the associated hazards and risks?
Have we ensured appropriate resources and processes are in place to eliminate or minimise those risks?
What processes do we have for receiving information about incidents, hazards, and risks, and how does our board respond to that information?

Templates, resources, and references

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