Agenda item

School Engagement including Academies

[The Interim Compliance Officer will detail the ongoing work with schools to improve fire safety]. 

Minutes:

The Interim Compliance Officer gave an update on the Council’s engagement with schools on the matter of fire safety.  He stated that there were approximately 50 community schools.  Until recently, the fire risk assessments had been done on an ad hoc basis.  There was now a fire risk assessment programme in place, to ensure suitable and competent fire risks assessments were completed across all the community schools.  The programme was set to end by the end of March.  Following the assessments, a number of actions needed to be undertaken.  Some of those actions would rest with the Council and others with the school.  Schools had devolved budgets and so much of the cost would fall on them.  The Council would be working with the schools to ensure that the actions were correctly implemented. 

 

The Interim Compliance Officer remarked that the next key area was to ensure that the buildings were being used and managed in a safe way. Schools were being asked on a twice termly basis to return a form to the Council, with their certification that they were undertaking the necessary fire safety checks.  For example, ensuring the fire alarm was working correctly, that evacuation drills were undertaken and making sure someone was checking the escape routes.  Responsibility for fire safety collectively fell with the Headteacher, the Governors and the Council. 

 

The Interim Compliance Officer commented that there was a member of the Council’s Health and Safety Team who as part of her audit of schools was undertaking compliance checks when she visited schools.  A large part of these compliance checks was regarding the matter of fire safety.  The fire risk assessments being completed would report back on the type of materials the schools were constructed with, including whether any ACM cladding had been used.  Corporate Landlord had also completed a desk top exercise and had visited a number of schools, where they couldn’t determine beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no ACM cladding material used.  The desktop exercise would be superseded by the more detailed fire risk assessments which were due to be completed by the end of March 2019. 

 

The Interim Compliance Officer stated that at one school, the fire assessor could not identify the type of cladding used, which had since been determined not to be ACM cladding.  At another school there was potentially ACM cladding at a very high level, but the fire assessors had concluded it was not a life safety matter.  Documentation about the school was not clear over the type of cladding used and so they would consider hiring a cherry picker or elevated platform to take samples of the cladding from the school.  A spreadsheet was being developed detailing the materials used at all of the community schools.

 

The Interim Compliance Officer stated that the Council did not have direct responsibility for academy schools.  The Head of School organisation had sent a letter to all academy trusts in January 2019 informing them about the actions the Council were taking in relation to community schools and reminding the academies of their fire safety duties.      

 

The Chair asked for details about the response from the community schools to the twice termly letters requesting the completion of compliance forms.  The Interim Compliance Officer confirmed that the response rate was about 40-45% of schools regularly returning the forms.  Within the last week an escalation policy had been agreed to target the schools which were not completing the forms.  Even though some schools were not always completing the forms, Officers were of the view that they were probably carrying out the necessary fire checks.  Regardless of this, Officers needed to assure themselves that all necessary checks were being undertaken and so completion of the forms was a necessary requirement.  Officers were prepared to have face to face meetings with school staff if required. The Chair agreed that a robust monitoring system was important.   

 

A Member of the Panel referred to the old Headteachers forum.  She asked if there was another type of meeting which the Council could engage with.  The Interim Compliance Officer responded that quarterly meetings had been setup with the schools.  An invitation was sent to all schools, with about 6-8 schools being particularly engaging.  The Chair commented that most schools appointed a Health and Safety Governor who could be particularly useful to approach. 

 

There was a discussion about the appropriate level of engagement with academy schools.  The Panel suggested that reminder letters should be sent to academy schools in the future.

 

Resolved:

 

A)    That a further report on fire safety at schools be received at the next meeting of the Fire Safety Scrutiny Group.  

 

B)    That reminder letters should be sent to academy schools regarding the school’s responsibilities towards fire safety.