Volunteer

[The Big K]

Hi all,

Bit of a random one, one of site Caretakers is leaving shortly for pastures new. In the interim period of recruitment the Head's Father has offered to assist with caretaking duties as a volunteer.

As he won't officially be an employee what duties would be suitable ?

I was thinking, groundworks, gritting, litter picking, poterage. Anyone had experience of this before ?

As he won't officially be an employee i don't know if id be comfortable giving him legal compliance checks etc.

[grimoopnorth]

Yes I think your right with just basic duties like litter picking etc. Compliance should be carried out by the designated staff and not a volunteer. It would also be a good idea to just check he has a DBS. Sometimes these things get overlooked when it's family.

[greenjack]

Will he be covered by your liability or accident insurance?

[hotwheels]

he may be a spy I would give him all the horrible jobs as much as possible lol

[Gazza]

Hi all,

Bit of a random one, one of site Caretakers is leaving shortly for pastures new. In the interim period of recruitment the Head's Father has offered to assist with caretaking duties as a volunteer.

As he won't officially be an employee what duties would be suitable ?

I was thinking, groundworks, gritting, litter picking, poterage. Anyone had experience of this before ?

As he won't officially be an employee i don't know if id be comfortable giving him legal compliance checks etc.

1st and foremost, does he have a DBS??????

he wont be allowed on site (unsupervised) to do any of these things unless he has that. Secondly, I dont think the law states what a volunteer can or cant do, its your/ the HT's responsibility to ensure they have sufficient training to carry out the given task and they are risk assessed and follw said risk assessment.

[Vera]

DBS, Insurance and a specific RA for any tasks completed and possibly OH if he has any medical conditions.

But I would be cautious of someone so close to the head working as a caretaker.
It would be so easy to get the wrong idea if he is only doing the simple jobs. The issue with volunteers in general is that they think that they are doing the school a favour so are less inclined to follow the rules and take short cuts.

[Sparky]

As others have said DBS will still be needed regardless of volunteer status. Safer recruitment and safeguarding pretty much demands this. The school can of course facilitate this but it’s really not something they should be skipping over regardless of who they are related too.

Insurance shouldn’t be a problem once they are legitimately on your schools volunteer record. Training would be needed should they be lifting, carrying, moving or working at heights etc etc…