OHS Risk Planning and Management

Developing and maintaining an OHS risk register for health, safety and wellbeing risks

The principal or their delegate, in consultation with school staff who are or are likely to be affected and HSRs, where elected, must prepare and maintain an OHS risk register, listing identified health, safety and wellbeing hazards and the controls implemented, to eliminate or minimise the associated risks. To assist schools in this process, the department has developed a generic, pre-populated Microsoft Excel OHS risk register template (XLSX). The OHS risk register template has also been made available as a Google Sheets template*.

This template lists common hazards that are required to be included in the school’s OHS risk register.

The principal or their delegate, in consultation with school staff who are or are likely to be affected and HSRs, where elected, must tailor their OHS risk register by including school specific hazards and the mandated hazards. This can be done through the review of workplace inspections, health, safety and wellbeing hazard and incident data, specific task/activity risk assessments and other communication channels.

The principal or their delegate must review the school’s OHS risk register as required, and at least annually.

The local regional OHS support officers and the OHS Advisory Service can provide support to schools on this process. For schools that have transitioned to eduSafe Plus, you can maintain your OHS risk register on this digital platform – contact your regional OHS support officer.

The department offers health, safety and wellbeing for school leaders training as part of the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership’s offering of strategic management training. This full day training aims to build the understanding of the foundations necessary to effectively manage health, safety and wellbeing in schools, including the development and maintenance of the risk register. All school leaders are encouraged to attend this training.

*Please note: If schools are using their own tenancies of Google Workspace for Education, they are encouraged to ensure they have undertaken a privacy impact assessment (PIA) – download a partially populated PIA (staff login required). Schools using the departmentally provided tenancy of Google do not need to do this. Always take care to ensure that school documents are locked down so that only relevant personnel can access them.