Risk assessments are a tool to help identify anything that could cause harm at work (eg an icy playground in the winter, a young person with a history of violent behaviour or using a Bunsen burner in a science classroom); considering how likely that harm is to happen and how serious it could be, and to decide what needs to be done to prevent or reduce the risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legal requirement to undertake risk assessment from the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Regulation 3 requires employers to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of employees and others who may be affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A risk assessment should look at what actually happens in the workplace. That means taking account of the people doing the work and their practical experience. It should consider not just obvious physical hazards, but also work processes, organisation of work and longer-term risks to health such as work-related stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Importantly, the legal responsibility for carrying out risk assessments rests with the employer. This does not mean that EIS members should not be involved. People doing the work often have the best understanding of the practical risks and should be consulted. For example, teachers and lecturing staff often have strong understanding of the behaviour of a pupil or student and the triggers and strategies that can be used to de-escalate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It makes sense that they be consulted when a risk assessment is created for a pupil. Sometimes further specialist input such as Educational Psychology may be required. However, consultation and involvement are not the same thing as taking legal responsibility for the assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to have access to a competent person to assist with health and safety. Competence is not simply about holding a particular qualification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers must be able to raise concerns, contribute their knowledge and be consulted about risks that affect them.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n A competent person needs appropriate knowledge and understanding of the work being assessed, the principles of risk assessment and prevention, current health and safety measures and how to identify hazards. They also need to know when specialist advice is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is important in schools, colleges and universities. Teachers and lecturers will have excellent knowledge of their classroom, subject or pupils\/students, but that does not automatically make them responsible for carrying out or approving a risk assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, unpromoted teachers are not responsible for creating or \u201csigning off\u201d risk assessments. Teachers must be able to raise concerns, contribute their knowledge and be consulted about risks that affect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In schools, where a promoted member of teaching staff has a specific responsibility for health and safety, this may include completing or contributing to risk assessments. The SNCT Handbook sets out that Headteachers have overall responsibility for the management of health, safety and wellbeing in a school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where health and safety responsibilities have been assigned to a DHT, and are reflected via a job sizing process, this must be properly recorded in the job description.[SB1.1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the employer\u2019s responsibility to ensure that anyone undertaking risk assessments has appropriate information, instruction and training. It would be unreasonable to give someone a risk assessment template and expect them to know how to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Safety representatives have an important role in checking and challenging risk assessments. Under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees regulations 1977 employers must provide appointed union safety representatives with relevant health and safety information, including information about risk assessments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An EIS H&S representative can therefore ask to see risk assessments and should be able to examine whether they cover the relevant workplaces, activities and hazards, whether they reflect what actually happens and whether the control measures identified are being implemented and are effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Safety representatives can also ask questions about who is carrying out the assessments, their competence, what qualifications or experience they have, what information and training they have received, and whether they have sufficient time, resources and authority to carry out the work properly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Risk assessments are a tool to help identify anything that could cause harm at work (eg an icy playground in the winter, a young person with a history of violent behaviour or using a Bunsen burner in a science classroom); considering how likely that harm is to happen and how serious it could be, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2635"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is the role of the EIS Health and Safety Representative?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n