If you are a business manager at a school, a CEO of a multi-academy trust — or anyone else in the management team responsible for overseeing the maintenance and repair of school buildings — then the likelihood is you’ve encountered the problem of asbestos.
The presence of asbestos is a problem in almost all school buildings and public buildings built between 1950 and 2000. In many of these ageing infrastructures, there is a risk that some asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) could become exposed and be inhaled by workers, teachers and pupils alike.
Asbestos exposure is a serious issue that can lead to aggressive cancers and lung diseases. So you must ensure your school or MAT stays fully compliant with all the appropriate regulations to keep everybody safe.
This guide will tell you everything you need to know about asbestos in schools and how to make sure you’re compliant. We will talk about:
- Who’s responsible for the management of asbestos in school buildings
- What they are expected to know about the condition of asbestos under their watch
- How to monitor asbestos in your school or college easily and effectively
- When it’s time to get an asbestos survey
- Why many MATS over the UK are struggling with compliance — and putting people at risk of asbestos exposure
- Your asbestos in schools FAQs
Manage asbestos in your school with our FREE asbestos toolkit. It contains a full e-learning course, a factsheet, 5 ‘quick tip’ videos, a printable poster and a podcast. We’ve also got this asbestos awareness refresher course here, which you can try for free.
At iAM Compliant, we’ve built an easy-to-use tool to help you stay compliant with asbestos and all the laws and regulations. It’s designed by former school facilities managers, spells everything out in Simple English, and can be rolled out in individual schools and across large multi-academy trusts with ease.
Who’s responsible for the management of asbestos in school buildings?
That responsibility would lie with the ‘dutyholder’. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the dutyholder is ‘the person or organisation that has clear responsibility for the maintenance or repair of non-domestic premises’.
However, it’s not always immediately clear who the dutyholder — or dutyholders — are:
- In some schools, these responsibilities are shared, for example between a local authority as the employer and the school.
- In other schools, the responsibility may fall solely to a governing body as the employer. All ‘dutyholders’ must ensure that any asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) are managed properly.
- For multi-academy trusts, it may be the academy trust itself.
- For independent schools such as pupil referral units or special needs schools, the management may be responsible.
How to find out who your school’s dutyholder is.
If there is confusion over who the dutyholder is, even amongst the school management, then you can do the following:
- Check your school’s status. The dutyholder will be different depending on if you’re in an independent school, small school, or large MAT (see above).
- Review the relevant school documents on asbestos. They should indicate who the dutyholder is (or was).
- Contact your school’s local authority. Their education department should be able to provide guidance.
What information is the dutyholder expected to know about the current state of asbestos in schools?
The dutyholder should know about and be responsible for:
- monitoring any ACMs on the school grounds and keeping an up-to-date record of where they are, and what condition they are in.
- assessing any potential or significant risks that these ACMs might have.
- proactively making plans to prevent ACMs from becoming a danger in future — and making sure those plans are put into action.
- get involved in the hiring and briefing of any contractors/workers on site, and making sure they’re trained and competent. And that they have all the correct information to safely deal with ACMs.
The responsibilities of other staff members.
To be clear, everybody working in a school needs to be aware of the dangers of ACMs and should be instructed on how not to disturb or damage asbestos. Monitoring the condition of ACMs lies solely with the dutyholder, but teachers and staff should be mindful and quickly report on cases where they believe asbestos may have become exposed.
Did you know? Damage to the school building can release asbestos fibres. Including damage to fixtures, fittings, ceiling or floor tiles.
Even pinning work to the walls, slamming doors and putting up a poster can disturb asbestos and increase background levels by up to 5x as much (source). That’s why it’s so important your staff members are all well aware of the lingering threat of this killer material.
How to easily manage asbestos in school buildings — and why it’s crucial that we do so.
If you’re currently tearing your hair out, thinking ‘There are so many people at my school/trust, it’s impossible to train and check on all of them!?’ Then take a deep breath and relax.
For anybody stuck on an old-fashioned method for checking school compliance — such as an Excel spreadsheet, or even a pen and paper — managing asbestos is indeed a Herculean task. Staff are busy, they forget. You forget. And then, without realising it, everybody in the school is suddenly at risk.
In fact, this is why the University and College Union estimates that only 28% of ACMs in Britain’s state schools are clearly marked and monitored, with only 20% of dutyholders clearly showing contractors the risks before starting work (source).
This terrifying neglect of our state schools is putting everyone at risk who has ever stepped foot inside a school. Our children, parents, teachers and contract workers — anyone visiting or learning in a school built before 2000 could be in harm's way.
That’s why we created our school estates and compliance tool. It lets you easily track all of your compliance goals and deadlines in one place, keep a log of any problems at the school — and help you read, sign and track versions of important documents.
Here’s a video of how it works to give you an idea.
Our compliance software will give you all the tools to easily and quickly manage asbestos, even if you’re running a large multi-academy trust. As it will essentially put everyone on the same system, using the same tools and materials.
There’s no limit to the amount of schools you can have on our plans, and we don’t just deal with asbestos. Our software will help you stay compliant with every legal requirement. So that you can breathe easily.
We’re much more affordable than our competitors. Our competitors are much more expensive than we are and have a different type of pricing strategy ('modular pricing'). We don't offer a modular price structure, we just give our customers the whole package.
For example, a primary school can have our whole package for approx. £730 a year. Whereas if they went with the competitors I'm referring to, they might have to pay £600 for one module. And if they wanted to add another module, it might cost an additional £250 and so on. So if our customers want the full system, we are much cheaper. It's a set price and this helps with our customers who have smaller budgets.
We also provide:
Free training. We just charge for software, we don't charge for training. Our competitors do charge. They charge for onboarding the staff and we don't. We also have 'How-to' guides which are perfect for new, inexperienced site managers or apprentices. Our guides show you exactly what to do and how, and importantly how you do them. It also shows them what skills they would need to learn and what equipment/knowledge they need to learn the skill. This isn't something that I'm aware of that any of our competitors do.
Excellent customer service. We are a small company with more time for our customers, run by actual former school facility manager experts. We are 'small' in a good way. We are easier to deal with and it's easier to get in touch with us. Our co-founders, Luke and Andy Ball, because of their past experience, will know how to speak and resonate with any problems/issues that the facilities managers and site managers at the schools may have. They also know how to make our software as friendly as possible to our target audience, because they have walked that walk before.
Monitoring asbestos in your school or college.
Monitoring asbestos can be a formidable task as its usage was widespread in school buildings before the year 2000. In this section, we will talk about where it might be lurking and how to tell if an ACM might be at risk of deterioration.
Where is asbestos found in schools?
If your school was built before the year 2000, you might be expected to find ACMs typically present in:
- thermal insulation on pipes and boilers
- sprayed asbestos in partitioning and ducts as a form of thermal insulation and fire protection
- insulating boards
- floor and ceiling tiles
- cement roofing and guttering
- textured coatings
Signs that asbestos in your school might be in poor condition or damaged.
In an old building that may contain asbestos, typical wear and tear could indicate that the asbestos fibres may be exposed — putting you at risk. This includes:
- Cracked, missing or loose roofing, ceiling, floor tiles and wall panels
- Crumbling or peeling textured coatings
- Crumbling insulation
- Signs of water damage including stains, mould or dampness (water can deteriorate ACMs)
- Any recent work that may have distributed or damaged a part of the premises
Asbestos surveys — do you need one?
There is no strict legal requirement for the frequency of asbestos surveys. But if you’ve not already had an asbestos survey, you must get one. It is the view of the National Education Union (NEU) that they should be carried out in all schools built before 2000 unless there is good reason not to do so.
You should make sure an initial comprehensive survey is carried out to identify the location and condition of all ACMs in the school. From then on, managing asbestos should be a continual, proactive process, with regular inspections of the condition of asbestos. But re-surveys are only needed when there are significant changes to the building. Or when inspections indicate there may be issues.
Important: The NEU has explicitly expressed concern about how large and complex multi-academy trusts are unable to effectively monitor asbestos, arguing that ‘when schools become academies, they lose the support of the local authority as duty holder. While some academy trusts will be experienced in asbestos management, many, especially small trusts, will not. This could lead to poor asbestos management practices’ (source).
Do not let your trust run the risk of poor asbestos management. Contact us today and let us get you set up on an easy-to-run, effective system today.
Case Study: How we helped a Hampshire-based trust achieve the ‘Gold Standard’ in asbestos management.
Like with the majority of schools today Hampshire-based trust was struggling to monitor and mark the ACMs on their site premises, using old fashioned methods that could easily be forgotten about or hard to check.
When they came onboard with iAM Compliant, they were quickly able to access our comprehensive asbestos toolkit and take advantage of our asbestos awareness refresher course.
With these tools available both the dutyholders and staff could immediately see what work needed doing and what compliance deadlines to work with. But perhaps most importantly, they could quickly log where ACMs had been detected and take proactive action on how to safely manage them.
Our free training courses also offered staff the confidence to know what to look for and encouraged a wider understanding of the risks.
Utilising our software, Hampshire-based trust implemented a comprehensive asbestos management program which involved regular inspections, immediate action on high-priority areas, and thorough documentation of their effective containment strategies for ACMs.
Then in early 2023, the HSE paid them a surprise visit, providing only 24 hours' notice. Upon arrival, the HSE inspector assessed the trust's iAM account and was presented with a well-structured asbestos management plan, complete with location details and images of asbestos within their estate management plan.
The inspector also reviewed the thorough audit trail of routine inspections for each area and verified the records of asbestos awareness training for all staff on-site.
Impressed by their comprehensive approach, the HSE inspector concluded the inspection within two hours and commended the trust for achieving the “Gold Standard” in asbestos management.
This case study serves as evidence that with dedication, careful planning, and allocation of resources, successful asbestos management in schools is indeed attainable.
FAQ
What is asbestos and why is it dangerous?
Asbestos is a ‘stringy’ type of mineral found naturally on Earth. The ancient Greeks knew about asbestos and mined it for its fire-resistant and anti-corrosion properties. However, it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that the use of asbestos was common in construction as insulation and fireproofing.
Asbestos is dangerous because these ‘stringy’ fibres can break into microscopic pieces that — if you breathe them in — can get stuck in the lungs and stay there for years. Over time, these fibres can irritate and inflame the lungs, causing various asbestos-related diseases (such as asbestosis) and cancers including lung cancer and a very aggressive type of cancer, mesothelioma.
Does a school have to close if it thinks it has an asbestos problem?
No. The HSE expects schools to manage asbestos in a proactive way and on an ongoing basis. This means preventing anyone from being exposed in the first place, along with taking steps to identify where asbestos might be present and assessing its condition.
There may be circumstances where a building or part of the school may need to close while some work is being carried out on ACMs. But the school itself does not have to close.
What about pupils — can they damage asbestos?
Yes. If the pupils are unsupervised and acting unruly, then there’s a chance they could damage and expose themselves to asbestos.
However, if a school is compliant and follows a proper asbestos management plan the chances of this happening should be small as any vulnerable or exposed ACMs will already have been removed. This is because the essential precautions of an asbestos management plan for schools should make it unlikely for normal school activities to damage or disturb asbestos, and make for the safe removal of asbestos.
Is asbestos in heating systems particularly dangerous?
No. Thankfully, air movement over asbestos products does not tend to encourage the release of asbestos fibres that can be breathed in. So heating systems are not more dangerous than other ACMs.
What are the risks if a roof void is contaminated with waste asbestos material?
If the waste is undisturbed, it shouldn’t present a risk elsewhere in the school. But you should err on the side of caution and assume any roof void above asbestos ceiling tiles are contaminated and all work on them must be properly managed.
What are the laws and regulations around asbestos and what do they mean?
The main legislation that applies to asbestos safety lies in the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 which explains who at your school has legal duties to manage and keep an eye on asbestos.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) requires employers to prevent any workers on the school premises from being exposed to hazardous substances on-site, including an asbestos hazard.
Other important regulations include the Health and Safety at Work Act, the Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM), and the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations.
How do I get my school ready for an asbestos inspection?
Now you’ve got your asbestos survey in place that’s a great start, but there are some other critical elements you need in place to ensure you’re fully compliant.
- Risk Assessment: A good asbestos survey will also include an assessment of the risk of asbestos present on your site and recommended actions to undertake. The assessment will identify whether any asbestos on your site is problematic or not, investigate whether it could be damaged, where is it located, and which type of asbestos it is.
- Management/Action Plan: It’s all well and good having a thorough survey and risk assessment in place — but you’ll need an action plan to identify measures needed to offset and mitigate any risks that have been flagged up. You need to be looking at this at least every six months, checking the identified asbestos to see if there has been any deterioration or damage. A good survey will often take photographs of the asbestos within the building material so when you come to reinspect you can take further photographs to evidence any changes.
- Staff Briefings: The HSE may choose to call your school site rather than just turn up at reception, so they may speak to anybody on your school site. If the staff member they speak to doesn't seem clear on what asbestos is or what plans are in place to manage it, that’s going to be a red flag to the HSE. So, talk to your staff in the office or anyone who is likely to answer the phone, give them a rundown, and brief them on your asbestos survey and management plan. Ensure all your asbestos documents are kept electronically and physically on a shelf somewhere so that everyone has access.
- Asbestos Training: There could potentially be asbestos in any part of your school site, so everyone must have at least a basic awareness of what asbestos is, where it may be lurking and the dangers it can pose if disturbed.
Follow these steps and you should have all of your documentation, plans, training, and briefings in place ready for the HSE.
What documents will I need to supply to the HSE when they visit for an asbestos survey?
You will need to supply the following:
- A copy of your asbestos management plan. All non-domestic premises built before the year 2000 must have an asbestos management plan.
- An up-to-date asbestos register. This will detail where any asbestos has been identified at your site.
- Evidence that all ACMs are in good condition. This will show HSE that your on-site asbestos is being managed properly.
- A priority risk assessment, or evidence that the risk of people being exposed to asbestos has been assessed.
These assessments look at the risk of people being exposed to asbestos — not just the asbestos material itself.
What are the main compliancy mistakes that are made when it comes to managing asbestos in your school or college?
In our experience, and according to insights gathered from the HSE during their inspections, the main areas where schools needed to improve to be fully compliant with the law included the following:
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- Lack of an effective asbestos survey
- The survey isn’t easily accessible/staff don’t know where it is
- No asbestos management plan for the school off the back of the survey
- Lack of an asbestos risk assessment for schools
- No asbestos awareness training
Make sure you are compliant with asbestos in schools with our easy-to-use compliance management software.
Many schools are failing in the management of asbestos in school buildings, putting the lives of everyone at risk. This is not due to ill intent or deliberate neglect. Rather it’s because it can be difficult to keep on top of everything — especially for business managers or CEOs at multi-academy trusts.
Our compliance management software makes it easy to keep on top of training, the relevant documentation, and all the precautions that need to be in place when it comes to asbestos management.
Book a demo or free trial today and see how we can help you improve all aspects of compliance at your business.
