Health and Safety in Early Years and Childcare. Bernadina Laverty
in case law. It is also implied in health and safety regulation, particularly in relation to risk assessment, requiring you to assess what needs to be done by looking at risk versus the sacrifice.
If the likelihood of someone getting hurt and the severity of the injury is grossly disproportionate to the cost of dealing with the risk, then the risk is significant and action must be taken to reduce the risk to the lowest possible level.
Equally, if the risk is insignificant in relation to the cost, then it is not reasonably practicable to undertake the work. Risk assessment requires you to consider this prior to an accident or incident occurring.
HSE provides guidance regarding this concept at http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/alarpglance.htm.
Risk assessment is discussed in Chapter 7.
Childminders
The same duty applies to self-employed people; therefore these duties also apply to childminders.
At the time of writing this book, there has been a consultation on the application of health and safety law to certain categories of self-employed people. This may result in some changes to the law. For up-to-date guidance, consult the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/consult/2012.htm.
Health and safety policy
An employer has to prepare and revise when necessary a written statement of their general policy with respect to the general health and safety of their employees and the organisation and arrangements to carry out that policy effectively.
Under health and safety law if you employ fewer than five people your health and safety policy does not have to be in writing, but you still need to have a policy on health and safety. It is a good idea to have some documented policies and procedures. This is a requirement under the EYFS.
The policy and any revisions must be brought to the attention of employees.
What should be included in a health and safety policy
You must set out what you want to achieve in terms of health and safety. This is called your statement of intent, in which you think about your objectives and what your commitment to health and safety is.
Organisation: you must state who is responsible for tasks, by either job description or name. Staff must know what their responsibilities are and, critically, have information, instruction, training and supervision to help them to do their job properly.
Arrangements: these are the procedures/precautions in place to secure health and safety in the premises and in the activities that take place in your business.
This policy statement should:
•be signed by the person in overall charge, for example, the employer
•be dated and it is good practice to include a future date for revision.
You need to bring the policy and any revisions to the attention of your employees. It will only be effective if it is a working document used by management and staff.
Many of the best policies are where staff have been actively involved in helping to identify what needs to be done and how to do it.
In an inspection, or investigation or complaint situation the health and safety policy and procedures may be examined to evaluate what should happen relative to what has happened. Enforcement officers may also question you and your staff to determine knowledge of responsibilities, policies and procedures relevant to the role.
HSE provides information about writing a health and safety policy and a simple model template, which can be adapted to reflect the complexity of your business. An example of a completed health and safety policy is also available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/policy.htm.
Employers’ duties to consult with employees
The law relating to the provision of a health and safety policy recognises the importance of bringing the employees’ attention to both the policy and any revisions.
Other specific regulations are in place requiring an employer to consult with their employees on health and safety matters and to provide them with information regarding risks to their health and safety.
HSE has produced a leaflet on consulting with employees; ‘Consulting employees on health and safety a brief guide to the law’ available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg232.pdf.
These regulations require you to provide information to employees. This may be done by displaying the ‘Health and Safety Law Poster’ or providing your employees with the equivalent pocket card or leaflet.
The 1999 poster or leaflet must be replaced with the 2009 poster or leaflet no later than 5 April 2014.
Inspection and enforcement
Every workplace may receive an inspection/intervention to assess that the employer/self-employed person is meeting their responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974 and other health and safety regulations.
A health and safety inspector may visit your premises in a number of circumstances including these situations:
•to carry out a routine inspection
•to investigate a complaint
•to investigate an accident or certain types of work related illness
•other intervention such as information gathering.
As a result of an inspection, the enforcing authority will make an assessment giving the business a risk rating. This will determine the frequency of future inspections, based on the management control of risk.
Enforcing authorities have enforcement policies and work programmes, detailing what they do and how they will achieve their targets. HSE has produced the National Local Authority Enforcement Code. This is a statutory code for local authorities regulators. This code came into effect on 29 May 2013. Work programmes need to reflect the guidance in this code. In future proactive health and safety inspections will be focused on high-risk activities in certain sectors. They may also be based on intelligence such as complaints.
The code and a list of high-risk activities and sectors is available on HSE’s website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/lau/publications/laenforcement-code.htm?ebul=hsegen&cr=2/3-june-13.
The hazard of the infection of children with e.coli or cryptosporidium from open farm or animal visitor attractions visits, where there is a lack of suitable control measures, is listed as a suitable target for proactive inspection.