Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Joint Union Asbestos Committee (JUAC).
JUAC is a trade union campaigning committee comprising the six main education unions: Association of School and College Leaders; Association of Teachers and Lecturers; National Association of Head Teachers; NASUWT; National Union of Teachers; Voice; plus the education sections of Unite, UNISON, UCATT and the GMB.
The Group has the objective of making all UK schools and colleges safe from the dangers of asbestos.
All the unions in JUAC are members of the Asbestos in Schools (AIS) campaign.
Over 75% of Britain’s state schools contain asbestos, according to the Asbestos in Schools: the need for action report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Safety and Health. The report reveals that much of the asbestos is badly maintained, meaning that children and staff and governors are liable to be exposed to this killer fibre.
More than 140 school teachers have died from mesothelioma (a cancer that is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos) in the past ten years. An unknown number of cleaners, administrative staff, caretakers, cooks and lunchtime supervisors have also died. The number of children who have been killed by exposure to asbestos at school is unknown, but in the US it was estimated that for every one teacher who dies, nine former pupils will die in adulthood from their exposure as a child. In the UK that would mean that more than 100 people are dying every year as a result of asbestos exposure when they were at school.
In all schools it is the duty holder that has responsibility for the management of the asbestos in the school.
The increasing number of academies and free schools, as well as existing foundation and voluntary aided schools, means that the duty holder cannot now simply be defined as the local authority.
The governing bodies in non-local authority schools and colleges now have responsibility for the management of the asbestos in their schools.
Recent Government policy statements have also suggested that responsibility for health and safety in all schools should transfer to governing bodies. If this were to happen then the management of asbestos in schools would become the responsibility of all governing bodies.
JUAC believes that it will be increasingly difficult to recruit governors if they have to accept this responsibility.
The recent asbestos incident in Cwncarn High School in Wales is evidence of how things can and do go wrong when asbestos is not properly managed in a school.
It is therefore essential that all governors, head teachers, caretakers and bursars receive asbestos management training.
Asbestos management training should be school-specific and properly funded and it must be compulsory.
This level of responsibility in the absence of specific asbestos training is likely todiscourage people from working as school governors.
It is essential for all governing bodies to have a governor with proper expertise in asbestos management.
Asbestos management training is currently not compulsory for head teachers and levels of expertise vary considerably.
There is growing concern that public liability insurance is not available to cover asbestos claims in schools. This means that governing bodies with responsibility for the management of asbestos in schools could find themselves uninsured in the future against asbestos-related personal injury claims from pupils and visitors to schools.
If governing bodies are to ensure that asbestos is properly managed in schools then the following issues must be addressed:
1.
2.
3.
December 2012