Work experience organisers
Who is the work experience organiser?
The organiser can be:
- a school;
- a college;
- an independent placing agency, eg Education Business Partnership (EBP);
- a specialist work experience organisation;
- a local education authority.
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What is their role?
Organisers arrange placements on behalf of education employers.
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The law
The organiser must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable:
- the health and safety of their employees; and
- that non-employees, including students/learners on work experience, are not placed in a work environment where they are exposed to significant risks to their health and safety.
For further information visit Young people at work and the law.
The number of hours worked and the pattern of work is normally a matter for agreement by the placement provider, school and students. Local education authorities (education authorities in Scotland) and schools should take steps to ensure that students on work experience placements are not asked to work excessively long hours or unnecessarily unsocial hours. It is strongly recommended that students should not be asked to work more than a standard eight-hour day.
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Health and safety responsibilities of work experience organisers
- Suitability of working environment – Organisers must do all that is reasonably practicable to ensure students are not placed in a working environment where there are significant risks to their health and safety. Organisers should be competent in health and safety, or have access to competent assistance, to decide on the suitability of a placement with regard to health and safety. The organiser needs to be reasonably satisfied that placement providers have:
- systems in place to ensure the health, safety and welfare, so far as is reasonably practicable, of the student while under their control;
- competence to manage health and safety in relation to the placement;
- supervision of work experience by competent people.
- Self-placement – Organisers have the same duties towards students who find their own placements or are placed within their own family business.
- Health, safety and welfare arrangements – Organisers need to take reasonably practicable measures to arrive at an informed opinion about the health, safety and welfare arrangements at the placement and to assess the suitability of a placement provider. The main duty to ensure the health and safety of learners rests with the placement provider.
- Limitations – Work experience placements and the specific activities that learners undertake must take into account any:
- Responsibilities to employees – Organisers have a responsibility towards any staff they employ to make site visits, to provide them with:
- information about the provider and about site conditions which may affect their health and safety;
- instruction and training in health and safety in relation to any risks they are likely to be exposed to in the course of their visits;
- personal protective equipment, where appropriate, and training in how to use it.
- Employees’ duties – Employees of the organiser who visit placements should take reasonable care of themselves and of others who may be affected by what they do – or fail to do.
- Liaison – The organiser should liaise with the education establishment about what health and safety information is provided to students about their work experience placement. They should ensure that students know who to contact if they have concerns about their health and safety during the placement.
- Information for placement providers/employers – The organiser should ensure that the placement provider/employer possesses relevant information about the student (for example about their health, learning disabilities, language difficulties) so job descriptions/risk assessments/supervision etc can be adjusted accordingly.
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Work experience abroad
If work experience is to take place outside of the UK, it would be advisable to restrict it to students over the age of 16. The placement will need to be organised considering the following:
- Students will be subject to the health and safety regulations of the country in question; find out in advance what rules apply.
- There may be differences in insurance requirements.
- Possible language difficulties.
- Assessment of risks involved in travel including health and vaccination requirements.
- Provision of contacts if the students have problems or worries, and who to contact in an emergency.
- The additional preparation required, so students know what to expect and what is required of them.
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Assessment of placement provider/employer
The organiser should take into account any contractual requirements which may prescribe particular systems for assessing and monitoring the suitability of placements.
Preliminary enquiries
The organiser should discuss with the potential placement provider the objectives of the placement and the implications of accepting students in the workplace. The placement provider needs to be aware that they are responsible for students on work experience in exactly the same way as for any other young person they employ. Co-operation and co-ordination between organisers will improve the knowledge of standards of a provider, particularly when students are placed outside the area.
Areas of health and safety to discuss with the employer include:
- Safety policy – This must be written down if there are five or more employees, including work experience participants.
- Risk assessment – The employer must assess the risks to the health and safety of employees (taking particular account of any young people) arising from their work, and take measures to control the risks identified in the risk assessment. The risk assessment for young workers must be carried out before the work experience placement commences, and parents/carers informed of the key findings. Organisers should inform the placement provider in advance about any individual students who may be at greater risk, for example because of health conditions or learning difficulties, so these factors can be taken into account. While it may not be necessary to repeatedly review a risk assessment if a succession of learners will be undertaking work experience under the same job description, it should take into account the typical characteristics of a young person and the likelihood that they will be entering the work environment for the first time.
- Provision of information to students and their parents/carers – The employer must inform all workers, including students on work experience, about the significant risks to their health and safety identified by the assessment and the measures put in place to control them. When the learner is below the MSLA, the placement provider must provide parents/carers of the work experience student with the key findings of the risk assessment and relevant control measures before the placement starts.
- Health and safety management at the placement – There are a number of other key indicators for assessing the provider’s management of health and safety and overall suitability as a placement provider. Factors that might be included can be found in the following aide memoires:
- General legal requirements,
- Management of health and safety,
- Work environment,
These aide memoires are not an exhaustive list, but are useful indicators for the standard of attention paid to health and safety.
If the provider is a large organisation (more than 250 employees) you may be able to check their health and safety performance rating. The HSE funded the development of CHaSPI, a corporate health and safety performance index. It aims to help in the assessment of how well an organisation manages its risks and responsibilities towards its workers, the public and other stakeholders. Results can be viewed online. The HSE also helped to develop a health and safety performance indicator for small and medium sized enterprises (up to 250 employees). Although the results are not made public.
The Learning and Skills Council has published standardsto assist in assessing the placement provider.
Site visits
It is good practice to include an initial site visit as part of the pre-placement check. This should be arranged with the potential provider, so they can make the visitor aware of health and safety procedures and accompany them during the visit. Site visits can be used to:
- provide a ‘snapshot’ of a potential provider’s approach to health and safety management.
The aide memoires provide some indicators for the standard of attention paid to health and safety;
- identify any hazards that those taking up placements may face;
- explore health and safety issues with the provider at the workplace;
- view the practical application of the provider’s management system for ensuring occupational health, safety and welfare;
- observe physical conditions, working environment and practice;
- make contact with employee safety representatives who can also be a useful source of information;
- clarify issues identified in preliminary enquiries, eg arrangements for covering the absence of the designated supervisor, or who has responsibility for reporting accidents.
Where the work activity is peripatetic, it may not be possible to visit all the sites to be used for the student’s work experience. Once it has been established that the provider has good health and safety management systems, a useful approach might be to visit a typical sample of sites. In these circumstances the provider must ensure the health, safety and supervision arrangements for the student are in place at all placement sites.
Individual contracts may specify the nature and frequency of visits.
A written record of the arrangements for a placement should be produced to:
- clarify and agree respective roles;
- reduce the potential for misunderstandings, particularly about health and safety responsibilities;
- explain how the learner's work will be planned;
- set out how learners will be instructed and trained before the work starts;
- identify the supervisor and specify the arrangements for supervision.
Review
Once a placement has been arranged, the initial assessment should be checked to ensure it is still valid. The organiser does not necessarily have to make further checks every time a new student is placed with a particular provider.
The information that has been gathered should be reviewed regularly, and as new information is brought to the organiser’s attention. The frequency of any subsequent checks of the initial assessment will depend on factors such as:
- the outcome of preliminary enquiries, initial visit etc;
- the nature of the work activity and the level of risks identified at the placement – higher risk would require more frequent contact;
- whether the student has any specific need relating, for example, to health, disability or learning difficulties;
- the standards of health and safety management;
- any changes or variations in the work undertaken by students;
- feedback from the students via their schools.
The higher the risk, the more frequent and detailed the reviews will need to be, and the higher the likelihood will be that revisits will be required.
There should be mechanisms in place to feed back information on placements from all involved, ie placement providers, teachers who have visited students during placements, and students themselves. If feedback indicates that health and safety arrangements at a placement are no longer satisfactory:
- raise the concerns with the placement provider immediately;
- establish what the provider will do to rectify the situation, and by when;
- consider whether to withdraw the student from the placement;
- if there are significant health and safety risks, contact the relevant enforcing authority (HSE or the environmental health department of the local council) for further advice.
The organiser should consider exchanging information with other organisations, to increase or update the knowledge of a placement provider’s standards of health and safety.
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Organiser’s competence
To meet legal duties towards the students that are placed, the organiser should:
- be competent, have competent staff, or have access to competent assistance to enable them to decide on the suitability of a placement with regard to health and safety;
- assess staff training and development needs and arrange any necessary training.
- evaluate the effectiveness of these arrangements.
Competent staff should:
- have a reasonable understanding of health and safety law relevant to the nature of the work they are assessing;
- be able to identify basic health, safety and welfare defects;
- be familiar with and fully understand their employer’s policy, organisation and arrangements for health and safety on work experience;
- be aware of their own limitations and know where to get advice or information about health and safety issues.
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Aide memoires
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