School board of trustrees - have you served on one?

Peter Bateman

In the Nov/Dec edition of Safeguard magazine, we report on a rare prosecution taken by WorkSafe against the Board of Trustees of a school.

Health and safety is one of the responsibilities of a BoT, which acts as the employer of all staff.

If you have served on a school board, or advised one, here's a question for you: what was the best H&S initiative you helped make happen in your school?

You can respond in public here on the Forum, or privately here via a Survey Monkey form.

An edited selection of responses will be published in the Jan/Feb edition, but with no names attached. One randomly selected person will receive a prize, namely a copy of the Health & Safety Handbook 2020, published by Thomson Reuters.

MattD2

Does anyone have the court transcript or notes for this case?
I find it interesting that WorkSafe have specifically called out that the have sentenced the Board of Trustees in this case, where other coverage of serious incidents at schools have predominately referred to the investigation/prosecution in general terms against the school (e.g. the St Kents Sweeney Todd injuries).
So it been pointed out that the St Kent's EU was between WorkSafe and the St Trust Board, which is what the quoted statements say in the news media but everywhere else in those articles it refers just to St Kent's.
I guess that would be the biggest suggestion from me that before running for a board make sure you know what you are getting into - technically there is no legal entity that is the school, it all falls on the boards shoulders.

School board of trustrees - have you served on one?

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