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UK News - Breaking news in the field of health and safety
Council failed in duty to adequately train
It has taken a workplace injury to a design technology technician, an Improvement Notice and a prosecution of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council to arrive at the situation where it is now meeting duties owed to employees under health and safety law. The technician sustained lacerations to his hand from an unguarded circular saw blade at Counthill community school in Oldham, the authority has now remedied defficiencies in risk assessment and training provision.
Trafford Magistrates fined the employer £12,000 with £4,884 costs, having admitted breaching S.2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The accident at Counthill alerted the HSE to the Local Education Authority's failings, the charges reflect its failure to impose, monitor and enforce a uniform safe system of work and minimum levels of training across its controlled schools as a whole rather than in one isolated school.
Oldham schools now identify training issues at interview stage, with training needs now reviewed on an annual basis. A new audit system is in place to monitor receipt of risk assessments.
Comment:
"_____ ____'s duties included cutting materials for pupils on equipment that they would not themselves be allowed to use and cleaning and maintaining work equipment including tools and benches.
At around 3.50 pm on 18th April 2005 he was asked by a pupil if he would cut some plywood sheets down as part of some GCSE project work and to perform this task Mr _____ used a Wadkin Bursgreen circular saw.
Mr _____ cut through the plywood with the saw and as he lent over to turn the saw off with his right hand his left hand came in to contact with the unguarded spinning blade causing the cuts to his first and second fingers on his left hand. It was only at this point that Mr _____ realised that the guard was missing.
Subsequent enquiries revealed that prior to Mr _____'s accident the saw had been used by __ __, a teacher at Counthill School. He had used the saw to cut a groove in a pupil's work piece and to do this had removed the crown guard and riving knife and adjusted the blade height. After he had completed his task he had turned the saw off and returned to his class but had not replaced the guard or riving knife as it was close to the end of the school day.
Our investigation revealed that ____ _____ had not received any training in the use and maintenance of woodworking machinery since he had joined the school in January 2004.
__ __ himself joined Counthill School in 1980 and although he had been trained as part of his teacher training he received no further training in his 25 years at Counthill School leading up to the accident.
The Council has since taken extensive health and safety measures, but all were reasonably practicable prior to Mr ____'s accident and it is a shame he has suffered to bring the need for them to light." - HSE Inspector who carried out the investigation.
