News Updates
Take a look at what's been happening in the world of education and health and safety since our last issue...
The CIEH Warns Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill Could Harm Health and Safety
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) has expressed concern about the impact of the government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill on health and safety protections. This Bill will put many health and safety regulations at risk of ‘sunsetting’ or removed. This may increase accidents, work-related injuries and work-related ill health, environmental health practitioners have warned.
Ross Matthewman, CIEH head of policy and campaigns, said: “There are very real concerns about the impact of the Retained EU Law Bill on our country’s health and safety protections, with the potential for many of the regulations we take for granted simply disappearing overnight. We recognise the need for planned and thorough reviews of regulations with a proper process of consultation. We do not believe, however, that this Bill provides suitable mechanisms for conducting such reviews."
EU-derived health and safety regulations support the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, which includes the so-called ‘six pack’ regulations, which cover the management of health and safety at work; manual handling operations; the use of display screen equipment; health, safety and welfare at work; the provision and use of work equipment; and the provision and use of personal protective equipment.
The Bill seeks to end the special legal status of all retained EU law by 31 December 2023, the ‘sunset’ date, although there will probably be a review and extension process until 2026.
EU-derived regulations also include regulations that cover a number of specific areas of risk, such as asbestos, construction, work at height, gas safety and the control of hazardous substances, the institute said.
Boy Found Dead on a Construction Site in South Yorkshire
Seven-year-old Conley Thompson went missing from home on 26 July 2016 and was found dead the following day on a Howard Civil Engineering construction site, when work restarted the following day. The boy had suffocated in a drainage pipe.
The construction site was a new-build housing development next to an existing housing estate and adjacent to busy pedestrian footpaths and roads. HSE found that there was insufficient fencing in place to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing the construction site due to a combination of poor planning, management and monitoring of the site and its perimeter.
Health and Safety Executive inspector Paul Yeadon said; “Conley should never have been able to be on that site. He should have been kept out.”
Investigators told Sheffield Crown Court that the drainage pipe had been fixed into the ground in preparation for the installation of fencing posts.
Howard Civil Engineering admitted to breaching regulation 13 (4) ( b) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations and section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. As well as a £600,000 fine, the company was ordered to pay costs of £ 42,952 .
An HSE spokesman said: “The dangers to children gaining access to construction sites and treating them like a playground is an ongoing problem which must be addressed at all types of sites no matter what their complexity or size. The construction industry should be aware of the dangers of construction sites to members of the public and any other unauthorised persons. The industry must do all it can to ensure children can’t access construction sites and be exposed to the inherent risks they present to prevent further tragedies like this from occurring.”
Company fined £126k After Worker Contracts Serious Blood Infection
Adler and Allan Ltd, a supplier of environmental risk services, has been fined after an employee became seriously ill when he contracted a blood infection while working at a lake contaminated with sewage.
The employee was working on a clean-up operation at a lake near Churchbridge, Cannock, Staffordshire, in June 2019. While working there, he contracting Leptospirosis (Weil’s Disease) and became seriously ill.
The infection led to the employee suffering a rash across his whole body which meant he had to limit contact with his family. His kidney and liver also had to be monitored. He was given antibiotics but took four months to fully recover.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found there was a serious risk of ill health to employees at the site as there were inadequate hygiene provisions in place to suitably guard against bacteriological and pathogen infection. They found that during around the first two weeks of the job, there were no on-site toilets or welfare units available to the company’s employees. This led to workers using a local supermarket to wash or use the toilet. There was also a lack of supervision at the site, with the company also failing to conduct a suitable risk assessment and implement an appropriate system of work.
Adler and Allan Limited of Station Parade, Harrogate, Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety Act 1974 and Regulation 20(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. The company was fined £126,100 and ordered to pay costs of £43,494 at Cannock Magistrates’ Court on 29 November 2022
HSE inspector Lyn Mizen said, “This serious ill health matter could have been avoided if the clearly foreseeable risks and dangers had been appropriately controlled and managed, right from the outset."
Schools Will Get £500 Million Funding to “Futureproof” Buildings by Making Them More Energy Efficient.
The Department for Education said funding would be paid to schools in December and colleges in January. This means that on average, £42,000 will be given to each secondary school and £16,000 for a primary school. Further education colleges will get £290,000 on average.
The government said; “improvements could include installing better heating controls, insulation to reduce heat loss from pipes or switching to energy efficient lighting”.
In addition, new guidance has been published to “support schools to maximise energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and improve sustainability and resilience this winter and beyond”.
The current energy support for schools will end in spring 2023.
The DfE has also released more details about the £2.3 billion funding boost from the Autumn spending review – of which £2 billion is new money. In a press release, it was revealed that maintained mainstream schools and special schools will all be guaranteed a funding boost from April next year. Of the additional funding, £400 million will go to councils’ high needs budgets, to support children with SEN.
Funding per pupil for mainstream schools will increase by approximately 5% in the next financial year, compared to 2022-23.
A typical primary school with 200 pupils will get approximately £28,000 extra, and secondary schools with around 900 pupils will receive approximately £170,000 more.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the investment will “not pay energy bills in the immediate future. We are deeply concerned that the government intends to end the energy relief scheme that is currently in place to help schools and colleges meet rising costs at the end of March. Removing this support will expose them to massive increases in energy bills that are simply unaffordable, and this will necessitate cuts in educational provision. Funding for energy efficiency upgrades is a longer-term undertaking and will not address the present crisis.”
Half a Million Young People are out of Education and the Workforce
Earlier this year, 490,000 16 to 24-year-olds were classed as not in employment, education or training and outside of the labour force altogether. It is the highest since July 2017, when the figure was 491,000.
The increase comes after the closure of the Government’s £2 billion Kickstart scheme, originally designed to help 16 to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment by subsidising six-month job placements for young people. The scheme has been criticised for underperforming, with the Commons Public Accounts Committee ruling in February2022, just a year after it was launched, that it had supported “far fewer young people than predicted” with a “chaotic” delivery.
Between July and September, 490,000 16 to 24-year-olds were classed as not in employment, education or training, and “economically inactive”, meaning they are not looking for and are not available for work according to Labour Party analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data
Some £2 billion was initially provided for the Kickstart scheme, with the underspend in 2021/22 a result of fewer job starts going ahead than had been funded for.
The Government has defended the scheme, saying it is prioritising skills investment across the board, in particular for young people through training programmes and an increase in apprenticeship funding.
Economic inactivity across all working ages has increased to nine million people – up 630,000 since the period before Covid – according to the latest ONS figures.
A Government spokesperson said: “We are focused on tackling unemployment among young adults, including by providing tailored help for young people through our Youth Offer. This is wraparound support over a 13-week Youth Employment Programme, delivered through over 190 Jobcentres and 159 Youth Hubs across the country."
Ofsted Reveal Nurseries Forced to Close and Class Sizes Growing in Schools and Colleges
The annual report by Ofsted, published in December, reveals “workforce and resourcing challenges” have forced nurseries to close, larger class sizes in schools and colleges, and disruption to activities such as drama and sport, mental health interventions and support for SEN students.
Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said “Ensuring this generation of children and young people get the education, training, care and opportunities they deserve remains a work in progress . It’s vital that education and social care providers are able to recruit, train and retain talented and capable people.”
The report found social services, nurseries and teaching assistants in schools were losing staff to more flexible, higher-paid work. This meant staff did not know children well, and were less able to ensure they were safe and learning effectively.
Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, which represents teachers, said Ofsted’s report was a “shocking and unprecedented” account of “deep gaps across the education workforce”, with the most vulnerable children the hardest hit.
“Education and other vital children’s services are being broken by staffing shortages, which leave services on their knees,” she added.
The government said “We know the pandemic has impacted children’s learning and social care, and we are incredibly grateful for the resilience and hard work of teachers, headteachers, social workers and other staff,” adding that it had put in place a “wide range” of support including £5bn in education recovery and increasing school budgets over the next two years.
GOV UK PRESS RELEASE: Ofsted Annual Report: Pandemic Recovery Slowed by Workforce Crisis in Children’s Education and Care
This year’s Ofsted Annual Report describes the extent to which education and children’s social care have recovered in the wake of the pandemic. The report looks back at the last academic year, from September 2021 to August this year.
If the education and social care sectors are to be resilient in the face of future challenges, problems recruiting and retaining staff must be urgently addressed: Long-standing staffing challenges in the social care sector have worsened. Children’s homes are losing care workers to retail or hospitality – or another home that pays Staffing issues mean local authorities are increasingly reliant on agency social workers, whose terms often include more remote working.
High staff turnover creates instability for children in care, as it reduces their chances to build relationships, which are important for their well-being and sense of security.
Recruitment continues to be a frustration for schools, colleges and independent learning providers. Schools report shortages of teaching assistants, and colleges are finding it difficult to recruit tutors in many areas. Fewer college staff can result in larger class sizes of mixed abilities, which can make it difficult to pitch the education or training at the right level.
Schools have also continued to experience COVID-related staff absences.
Other main findings in this year’s Annual Report:
Overall, Ofsted inspections show an improving picture in schools and further education over the last year, but the lasting impact of lost education will take time to properly assess. And, with more challenges looming, it’s important these gains are consolidated quickly.
88% of all state-funded schools are now judged good or outstanding – up nearly 2 percentage points from 2021.
70% of schools previously judged requires improvement are now good or outstanding following inspection last year.
Of 220 previously inadequate schools inspected last year, 66% were graded good or better and only 5% remained inadequate.
82% of further education providers are currently judged good or outstanding, the same as last year. However, the proportion of colleges judged good or outstanding has increased by 11 percentage points to 91%.
In 2021/22, Ofsted inspected nearly 500 schools that were previously exempt because they had been judged outstanding. Schools that were last inspected before September 2015 had a graded inspection. Of these 370 schools, 17% retained their outstanding grade, while 17% were judged requires improvement and 4% were inadequate. The remainder were judged to be good. A higher proportion of these previously exempt schools are now judged less than good than is the case for all schools nationally.
Children with the most complex needs are often the least well served in already overstretched education and care systems.
Many UK Universities Fail to Hit Carbon Reduction Targets
A report by the estates management record at the Higher Education Statistics Agency has revealed that 59% of the UK Universities missed reduction goals The sector had a goal to reduce emissions directly controlled by institutions by 43% between 2005-06 and 2020-21.
Cardiff Metropolitan University achieved a 65% decrease in emissions over the 15-year timeframe and was top of the table. However, the University of Oxford has fallen 16 places to 40th, while Cambridge fell two places to 86th.
Russell Group universities have shown improvement with two – the University of Exeter and Unversity College London – in the top 10 and, in general, the group has scored higher than last year.
Jack Ruane, the university league manager at People and Planet who collated the data, said: “It is disappointing to see that 59% of UK universities have failed to achieve the carbon reduction target. This highlights the importance of holding the sector accountable via short-term assessments of actual reductions in carbon emissions, rather than celebrating net zero target-setting, which are often vague on how offsetting will be achieved.”
Laura Clayson, the climate justice campaigns manager at People and Planet, said: “Despite 100 UK universities having now publicly announced the exclusion of fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios, just 60 have enshrined this commitment in a valid policy document. Concerningly, this is a significant drop from 76 last year. Severing investment ties with the fossil fuel industry is an important first step for universities to act upon their responsibility to communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis and fossil fuel extraction impacts. We hope to see a sharp increase in policy exclusions in next year’s league in line with this.”
Only 33% of universities (50 of 153) have a commitment to fully screen out all fossil fuel investments written into a valid policy. A further 10 universities have partial commitments.
Only 7% (11) have made a commitment in policy to directly reinvest in community renewable energy and/or renewable energy projects on campus. Only 3% of the sector (four) have committed to cutting recruitment ties to the fossil fuel and mining industries.
Met Officers in Schools to be Monitored
Sadiq Khan and the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, have agreed to monitor police behaviour in schools. Officers are to be monitored to see if they are disproportionately targeting black children. The measures are billed by Khan as a way to tackle disproportionality in the use of police powers, which is more likely to affect black people. The use of powers by safer schools officers in London, such as arrests and stop and searches, will be examined to see if there is racial bias.
Concerns about police in schools were heightened after the Child Q scandal, when a teenage girl was left traumatised after being strip-searched by officers for drugs it was revealed that she did not have.
The new plan reveals that black people are seven times more likely to be stopped by police on suspicion of carrying weapons. Currently 8 out of 10 stops yield nothing.
Other measures include community panels reviewing footage from body cameras worn by officers in order to examine cases where force is used. Khan is asking the government for a change in the law to make community scrutiny mandatory.
Rowley, who took office in September, has promised to reform the Met and boost confidence, which collapsed under his predecessor, Dame Cressida Dick. He said: “Baroness Casey’s interim report demonstrated that there is evidence of systemic bias in the Met. It is appalling that prejudices such as racism have impacted the public during police interactions. I am uncompromising in my determination to root out those that corrupt our integrity."
The mayor launched his race action plan in 2020. The update, released on Monday, finds black confidence is still 15% lower than for white people in London. Black people were also 20 percentage points less likely to feel the police use stop and search fairly than white Londoners.
Ethnic minority officers make up 16.6% of the Met’s ranks, while 40% of Londoners are from ethnic minorities – a proportion that is predicted to grow.
The new aspiration from the Met and mayor is for 21% of officers in the UK’s biggest force to be from an ethnic minority backgrounds by 2024 and 28% by 2030. From this year the target is that 50% of new recruits should be women, and 40% from minority ethnic communities.
Free Contract Manager Training Pilot for Schools
DfE are launching a new Contract Management Foundation Training pilot in Spring 2023.
This free pilot will test the Cabinet Office Foundation Level training with schools and MATs to understand if this is suitable in its current format. Participants will play an important role in helping identify any possible areas where the training can be improved to better meet schools’ needs.
The training is suitable for anyone within a school who has contract management responsibilities, not just those in a specific commercial role.
For further information and to express an interest, please send your name and job title to ESCC.PROJECT@education.gov.uk.