Urgent health and safety work

An urgent health and safety issue is one which will close the school (orschool, or part of the school)school, if it is not addressed. For example, a non-functioning sewerage system or a contaminated water supply.

IfWhen anyone identifies an urgent health and safety issue is identified,at your school, you must immediately:

• make arrangements to resolve it
• contact a property adviser at your local Ministry officeproperty advisor .

PayYou pay for urgent health and safetythis work with existing:existing Property Maintenance Grant or 5 Year Agreement (5YA) funding. If you do not have enough of this funding, you may be able to get Budget Plus or Unforeseen work funding using our emergency procurement process.

For funding advice, contactContact your property adviser:property advisor for advice on funding.

EmergencyUsing emergency procurement process

If we agree that the work is urgent,urgent we will advise you to go ahead with the work. You must then follow our emergency procurement processes.

Contact your property advisor toand get verbal approval to go ahead with the procurement. Leave a message if we are not available (egto take the call, such as in the weekend)weekend and follow this up with email confirmation. We will let you know if you can go ahead.

We will step in with support if we consider you are not fixing an urgent health and safety problem fast enough. We will:

• engage a project manager directly, and/or
• appoint contractors to undertake the work.

You must still provide the documentation that is part of project management requirements:the Project management requirements .

ManageManaging risk from urgent health and safety work

While an urgent health and safety issue is being resolved, you must manage any health and safety risks linked to that work. For example, you may need to:

• isolate the problem (eg closeproblem, such as by closing a building, unlessbuilding (unless it is essential to the school’s operation)
• minimise the problem (eg putproblem, such as by putting plastic sheeting over holes in the roof or cladding).cladding.

Talk to your property adviser at a local Ministry office first:property advisor first.

As part of your general health and safety management, we recommend you review your school’s health and safety systems against the 11 key componentsthe  11 key components of an effective health and safety system . This will help you meet the requirements of an effective health and safety system.the  Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 .