SCENARIO

You are the newly appointed health and safety advisor for a large school for children aged $1118.$ The school has $125$ teachers, administrators, and support workers $($some of whom are vulnerable$).$ There are $1900$ students who attend the school, some travelling distances of up to $12$ miles $($approximately $19$ km$)$ to access the schools specialist sports and drama provision.

The campus has expanded over the last $10$ years to meet the demand for more student places. This involved additional temporary single$-$storey classrooms being built on an already crowded site. Many of these temporary classrooms are now in a poor state of repair and are not currently being used. They are to be demolished and replaced with a permanent extension next year.

Outside of school hours, and over the weekends, the sports and drama facilities are hired out to local community groups. This provides an additional income for the school, however this income was reduced following a recent pandemic.

Your role will be to support and advise the schools Business and Finance Director $($BFD$).$ The BFD is identified on the health and safety policy $($dated December $2019)$ as having overall responsibility for health and safety. The BFD has delegated the day$-$to$-$day health and safety to the Facilities Manager $($FM$).$ They have also asked the FM to update the current risk assessment based on the current state of disrepair of the school, as the BFD does not have the time to get involved. The BFD pressurises the FM to reduce costs. As a result, the FM reduces their training budget, which includes health and safety, in order to prioritise renovations.

The overstretched Facilities Team is led by the FM and has responsibility for general building maintenance and improvement. The Team only comprises of two Facilities Supervisors $($FS$),$ three Facilities Operatives, and four Cleaning Operatives including one young apprentice. This is not a full Team, partially due to a high turnover of workers.

Many of the Teams planned activities, such as clearing out old stock $($books and stationery$)$ from the temporary classrooms, has been delayed due to under$-$staffing. Lack of space has meant some of this old stock has been stored in boxes in the permanent building. A complaint has recently been made by a wheel$-$chair user that sometimes they cannot pass through corridors due to boxes left on the floor and near fire exits.

Appropriate action has not been taken to repair the identified faults and poor conditions in classrooms. The health and safety $($H&S$)$ committee believe this is putting school workers at risk, even though the school has not received many reports of near misses or accidents to workers. The H&S committee are also concerned that health and safety inspections are not carried out frequently enough. Teaching and Facilities workers are beginning to experience a relationship breakdown, as both groups are frustrated about their working conditions.

You arrive at work to be told that one of the FSs had sustained a serious injury at the weekend. Despite torrential rain, it is believed that they were using a stepladder to carry out essential repairs at the school.

A pregnant sports teacher found the FS unconscious on the main driveway and left a message on the Headteachers answerphone. They also gave first aid and telephoned for an ambulance. No other school workers were around. The sports teacher assumed that the FS was working on the roof trying to clear leaves from a blocked gutter.

You open an accident investigation to try and find out what happened. At the scene there is a broken step ladder. Brooms and sticks are still on the roof and full bags of rotting leaves are still on the driveway. You look at the Facilities Team job$-$request sheets. You find some unactioned job requests including replacing faulty ladders, but there is no reference to the gutter$-$clearing activity. This supports the view that the FS could have been trying to clear the gutter to stop water overflowing. You look for any evidence of work$-$at$-$height training, instructions on how to do the work safely, permit$-$to$-$work, and specific risk assessments, but nothing is found.

First thing that morning you arrange informal one$-$to$-$one interviews with workers to gather as much information as possible. You book a private meeting room at the school. Some of the workers are visibly shaken by the accident so you allow sufficient time for answers to be given, taking breaks when needed. You tell the interviewees you are just trying to establish facts and not to appoint blame.

You start each interview by asking them what they know about the accident. Workers from the Facilities Team inform you that they regularly use ladders and step ladders to access roofs. This is to retrieve sports balls from the guttering or anything else stuck on the roof. None of them have seen, or been involved in$,$ risk assessments associated with the gutter$-$clearing task. The workers also say that the injured FS has been working longer hours to get jobs done but the FS had not informed anyone that they were going to work that weekend.

Later, you talk to some of the teachers and they tell you that a roof near to the workers breakroom has been leaking for several months and nothing has been done to fix it$.$ Some of these leaks have resulted in minor slip incidents and near misses.

During your interview with the FM$,$ they tell you that they have been under a lot of pressure to work within a certain budget. Many tasks that would have normally been done by an external contractor have been carried out by the Facilities Team.

You verbally agree the summary of your written notes with each interviewee before closing the meeting.

Task: Benefits of inspections$/$inspection frequency

What are the benefits of carrying out health and safety inspections at the school? $(10)$