Code of practice
Health and Safety
Surrey County Council's policy is to provide, manage and maintain safe, healthy working conditions, equipment and systems of work for all staff and users of the centres. We will provide information, training and supervision for this purpose.
Surrey Outdoor Learning and Development can assure visitors to their centres that they will endeavour to;
- prevent accidents and cases of work-related ill health
- manage health and safety risks
- provide clear instructions and information, and adequate training, to ensure employees are competent to do their work
- consult with our employees on matters affecting their health and safety
- provide relevant personal protective equipment
- provide and maintain safe facilities and equipment
- ensure safe handling and use of substances
- maintain safe and healthy working/learning environments
- implement emergency procedures, including evacuation in case of fire or other significant incident . These will be reviewed and revised regularly
Surrey County Council also accepts responsibility for the health and safety of our visitors who visit our centres.
Risk Assessments and Standard Operating Procedures
Our risk assessments and standard operating procedures are continually reviewed and updated to reflect the changing environment, situations and external factors.
Arrangements for health and safety
The centres operate 24-hour emergency cover when groups are resident on sites.
SOLD Centre staff work in partnership to support teachers, leaders or adults accompanying a group who are in loco parentis and/or have a Duty of Care for the safety, wellbeing and behaviour of the group. All groups are expected to be accompanied by a leader for all scheduled activities and expected to follow the terms and conditions of booking.
Single sex and mixed groups are required to have a female leader present at all times if there is a female in the party. In addition, mixed groups over 11 years of age must have both male and female leaders present.
When SOLD staff are leading planned activities without leaders (in loco parentis) , SOLD centre staff will take responsibility for supervision, duty of care for the safety, wellbeing and behaviour of the group. SOLD will provide both female and male leaders to be available on call and within 30 mins, for any planned work without group leaders day or night, for groups with under 16 years of age.
Public Liability Insurance
As part of Surrey County Council Education Services, the centres are covered by a comprehensive Combined Public Liability Insurance to the value of £50,000,000.
Areas of responsibility
The overall responsibility for health and safety lies with Surrey County Council. The head of SOLD is responsible for management of Health and Safety within the service and is accountable to SCC.
The Head of SOLD will delegate responsibility to managers with special responsibilities for areas of risk and hazard and operations and ensure that they are fully aware of their duties. Adequate training in the fields that they cover will be provided.
All Health and Safety problems noticed by any member of staff must be corrected at once. If a problem cannot be rectified, all persons must immediately be safeguarded from the hazard and the relevant person for the health and safety section concerned, informed. The Outdoor Learning and Development responsible Manager whose advice will be sought if this person cannot be located must be made aware of the problem which will be recorded in the incident book.
Accidents and Incidents – How we deal with them
All accidents and incidents are reported and recorded and risk assessments reviewed and controls put in place to minimise those risks. More serious incidents will require further investigation, to help identify why the existing risk control measures failed and what improvements or additional measures are needed.