Risk Management by Lottery
The idea that effective legislation can be drafted in plain English is a relatively new concept, and one which is viewed with great skepticism by some less enlightened members of the legal fraternity, who see no benefit to their industry in educating the public to have a good understanding of the law and their legal responsibilities. The Western Australian Government deserves to be applauded for developing clear, readily understood policy documents in plain English for many of its Departments, and for making them freely available on the internet.Not only does this mode of publication conveniently inform the public, but it makes clear and accessible the duties, ethical standards and responsible conduct required of public servants employed in this jurisdiction. Administrators uncertain about a particular issue can, at the touch of a mouse, find and read the procedures and protocols relevant to a particular set of circumstances, allowing an informed decision to be made and instruction on a lawful course of action to be transmitted to their staff.
But at our School it seems that legislation and policy documentation might as well be written in Latin, since it has no discernable influence on the way the School Administration responds to issues of workplace safety, student safety, risk assessment or hazard management.
The other day a local resident and neighbour of our school noticed something which was inconsistent with his prior experience as a section manager in a Government Department. He observed that the School had installed a chain, attached at one end to a stay-pole of Western Power’s electrical distribution network, and at the other to a tree growing on the road reserve of the street bounding the School. His recollection was that such installations were illegal, and so brought his concerns to another member of the community group monitoring safety problems at the School. A phone call to Western Power confirmed the installation was unlawful and unauthorised, and curiously, Western Power suggested the neighbour bring the matter to the attention of the School, while it undertook to dispatch a work crew to investigate.
The School Principal was unavailable when the neighbour called the school, so contact was made instead with the District Office of the Department of Education and Training. Two weeks later the District Office advised that the letter reporting the unlawful installation had been passed to the School Principal, and that following an inspection of the installation it was intended to make some modification as an interim measure until a permanent fence and gate were installed. The letter did not say whether Western Power had served notice on the School to remove the illegal installation. The neighbour noticed that the chain was still in place, and was still being secured each afternoon by staff at the school, and that the serious hazard posed by the chain was being allowed to continue.
Puzzled by the failure of either the School or Western Power to act on the reported hazard posed by the illegal gate, and concerned that the school was still using the chain in the same fashion, the original informant made further enquiries. Western Power undertook to serve notice on the School immediately, but was unable to say when a crew would be able to attend to its removal, due to demand upon personnel for higher priority tasks, including a large number of pole-top fires following the first rains after a long and dusty dry spell. The District Office of the Department of Education and Training declared the matter the responsibility of the School Principal. The School said that the Principal was unavailable, but acknowledged that discussions about the gate had taken place. Neither the District Office or the School would acknowledge that the installation was unlawful, or that it was hazardous.
The decision by the School Administration to allow the hazard to persist following the report from the public was not due to a failure of risk assessment procedures at the School. In this circumstance risk assessment was obviated by prevailing law and regulations controlling use of Western Power’s distribution network. These regulations made the installation illegal and therefore all staff at the School had a duty under the Public Sector Code of Conduct to cease the unlawful conduct. An additional duty fell upon the Principal under Section 63 of the School Education Act 1999 to ensure that it was safely removed in the interests of student safety. The fact that the installation is not on the school grounds but on the road reserve immediately adjacent to the school does not absolve the school, but rather compounds its culpability by adding trespass to the list of unlawful conduct. The road reserve is under the control of the City Council, and the school’s decision to install an unlawful and hazardous installation on a public road also gives rise to a dangerous public nuisance. The same section of the School Education Act also charges School Principals with responsibility for “promoting co-operation with the community” which is not served by persistent misuse of public space around the school.
Then at 3.30pm in the afternoon during persistent light rain following a long period of dry weather, and following notice to our School from Western Power that the structure was both illegal and hazardous, a staff member was seen padlocking the chain in place according to the School’s established practice. The School could no longer be excused as acting in ignorance. It was choosing to flagrantly ignore the notice already served upon it, and blatantly ignoring not only its duty of care to the students and the public, but also to the staff member who was allowed to once more handle the chain and operate the gate, this time in wet weather, and in environmental conditions where failure of insulators and the potential for electrical arcing to ground was greater than normal. Worksafe was duly notified.
During a telephone conversation between the neighbour and a School staff member following the intervention by Western Power, a telling insight into the safety culture of the school was offered. On being asked why the school was still allowing the illegal installation to be used as a gate, the staff member explained that it was necessary to protect the school oval from trespassing vehicles prior to the School Carnival the following week. “Besides, we have been using that chain for more than thirty years, without incident.”
As long as a culture remains at the School which allows staff to imagine that they can interpret risks arising from hazards according to such perverse reasoning and complete ignorance of the laws of probability, preventable safety issues at the School will continue to arise, and a serious and entirely foreseeable accident is simply a matter of time, not a matter of luck.
posted by kwoll @ 4:57 AM
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