A court case, where a former science teacher is suing the Victorian Government over injuries claimed to have been caused by a faulty blackboard, offers a stark warning to schools that do not have a system in place to identify and manage workplace hazards.

In the case in the Victorian Supreme Court, the teacher has sued the Government for $830,000 claiming it failed in its duty of care to act on her complaints about a faulty blackboard in her classroom.

Despite lodging an incident notification form and lodging a formal complaint about the board after suffering an injury in 2004, the teacher claims the school failed to act. She said she made repeated complaints to the school principal, who promised to fix the board. However nothing was done, according to the teacher, resulting in her suffering serious injuries in 2009.

The case underlines the need for schools to ensure they have an effective and easily accessible system in place that allows their staff to report workplace hazards to management.  Schools must also have systems and procedures in place to ensure that incidents are investigated and, where required, corrective actions are implemented.

The new national workplace health and safety (WHS) laws also require that school board members, and members of a school's executive, exercise due diligence to ensure that the school complies with its WHS duties and obligations.

In exercising due diligence school board members, and members of a school's executive, must:

• Acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of work health and safety matters.
• Gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the business or undertaking of the school and understand the hazards and risks associated with those operations.
• Ensure the school has appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks to the health and safety of its staff.
• Ensure the school has appropriate processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents, hazards and risks and responding in a timely way to that information.
• Ensure the school has, and implements, processes for complying with any WHS duty or obligation.
• Verify the provision and use of the above resources and processes.

To read more on what directors and officers need to do to satisfy their WHS obligations, you can read the CompliSpace briefing paper on the Model Australian Work Health & Safety Laws.