Do staff policies need to be signed

[ozydave]

Hello All,

is there any legal obligation for staff school policies (staff conduct, staff grievance, health and safety etc) none of our are. They are all published internally and on the website

 

Cheers

Edited December 4, 2017 by elsiegee40

[NB9457]

Not sure if it's compulsory, but should an issue ever arise and there's a signed copy, they can't plead ignorance.

 

It's good practice at very least anyway, we ensure all staff and pupils sign a fair use policy before using the system.

 

You could always do the old popup before logon 'By logging on to this computer, you are agrreing to the school's fair usage and monitoring policy. For more info, see (x member of staff/x documets)'

[3s-gtech]

Required to be signed? No. It's usually assumed that they've been agreed to on condition of accepting their contract.

[ozydave]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.

These are policies that have been added or updated to our policy area internally and to the school website. And I don't mean individual members of staff signing them, its the policy itself.

Should the SLT / governor that devises the new policy sign it to make it legally enforceable. and when it have been updated?

[NB9457]

I'd say it's always good to keep a paper trail. Maybe make staff aware too either in a staff briefing, staff bulletin, all staff email, just so they know it's been changed.

 

Email is always a safe bet though, as imaginably it's written in their original policy that they must keep on top of this and again, should you need too, you can prove an amended copy has been sent to all staff.

[simonw]

All our policies have to be ratified by the Governors before being 'published' on the shared area. Staff are then informed of them and are asked to make themselves aware of the content of the policy.

 

Two policies that are signed annually by staff is our IT AUP and Staff Code of Conduct for ICT.

[3s-gtech]

Ah, that's what I thought you meant. No, they don't need to be signed either but they need to be ratified with a date, and you should have the minutes of the meeting in which this was done. It's enforceable through contract usually - "the member of staff agrees to conform to all ratified school policies" or similar. Other aspects may be legally enforceable, but in that case the policy is irrelevant as the law will trump it.

[MkII]

Our local authority force policy acceptance using NetConsent... you can't log into a computer without scrolling to the bottom of a document and entering your username and password. This is for about 15 policies. At one site without web access the policies were printed out with a signing sheet at the back to stating your acceptance. So I'd say you should have explicit policies defined and signed.

[elsiegee40]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.

These are policies that have been added or updated to our policy area internally and to the school website. And I don't mean individual members of staff signing them, its the policy itself.

Should the SLT / governor that devises the new policy sign it to make it legally enforceable. and when it have been updated?

 

No they don't need to be signed @ozydave.

 

Policies are not current until they are ratified by the governors and the note of that taking place will be in the minutes of governor meetings which are also in the public domain.

 

It is good practice, however, for the policy to have ratification and review dates on the policy to save time.

 

All my governor Academy and MAT policies have a box like this on the bottom stating the ownership of the policy, ratification responsibility and the review cycle (this one is from the Health & Safety Policy)

Edited December 4, 2017 by elsiegee40

[sparkeh]

No they don't need to be signed @ozydave.

 

Policies are not current until they are ratified by the governors and the note of that taking place will be in the minutes of governor meetings which are also in the public domain.

 

It is good practice, however, for the policy to have ratification and review dates on the policy to save time.

 

All my governor Academy and MAT policies have a box like this on the bottom stating the ownership of the policy, ratification responsibility and the review cycle (this one is from the Health & Safety Policy)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46537[/ATTACH]

Yeah this. All our ratified policies have ratification date, review date, owner and change tracking. Every ratification is recorded in the minutes

We also have a master document that tracks all the polices and related info (version, dates etc).

Edited December 4, 2017 by sparkeh

[elsiegee40]

Discussion on adopting LA policies as school policies moved to

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/school-ict-policies/191120-adopting-la-policies-school-policies.html