Fieldwork Code of Practice

Policy and guidance on planning and managing fieldwork and off-site activities

Document Control Information

The latest approved version of this document supersedes all other versions. Upon receipt of the latest approved versions all other versions should be destroyed, unless specifically stated that the previous version(s) are to remain extant. If in any doubt please contact the lead contact.

Change control

Contents

1.Definition of fieldwork and offsite activities

2.Aim of the policy and guidance

3.Scope and exclusions

4.0Roles and Responsibilities

4.1Vice-Chancellor and/or Deputy Vice Chancellor

4.2University Management Board

4.3Heads of School and Directors of Department

4.4Occupational Safety and Health Services

4.4.1College Safety HUB Managers

4.4.2Occupational Health

4.5Fieldwork Leader

4.6Independent or lone working fieldworkers

4.7Fieldwork participants

4.8Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise

5.0Five phases of fieldwork and offsite activities safety management

5.1Feasibility Phase

5.1.2Threat Analysis

5.2 Planning Phase

5.2.1 Risk profiling and risk assessment

5.2.2Emergency response planning

5.2.3Downtime and Personal time

5.2.4Staff/Student Ratios

5.2.5Participant responsibilities and protection of participants under the age of 18 and vulnerable Adults

5.2.6Assistance of staff from other institutions

5.2.7Competence and training

5.2.8Transport

5.2.9Insurance

5.2.10Accommodation

5.2.11Catering

5.2.12Equipment

5.2.13Student Communication

5.2.14Fieldworkers with disabilities

5.2.15Participant personal information

5.2.17Communication with University home contact

5.2.18Local In-Country Contacts for overseas visits

5.2.19Emergency Assistance and Incident Reporting

5.2.20Health and medical issues

5.2.21Communication

5.2.22Supervision

5.2.23Exchange of information

5.2.24Third party providers

5.2.25Permissions

5.2.26Family members accompanying participants

5.3Authorisation Phase

5.4Application Phase

5.4.1Student Conduct / Code of Behaviour

5.5Review and revision phase

Appendix 1Confidential participant information form

Appendix 2 Example Code of Conduct for Students

Appendix 3Fieldwork Risk Assessment Form

Forward

Fieldwork and offsite activities in education cover a diverse range of activities including both lone working to multi group research and learning activities.

Student and staff participation in fieldwork and offsite activities provides an excellent opportunity to develop and enhance practical skills and extend theoretical understanding in live learning and research environments.

The ability of our staff and students to travel within the UK and throughout the world to conduct research and teaching and related activities is fundamental to the institution’s position as a leading teaching and research university. The very nature of research undertaken may require staff and students to travel to and work in challenging and sometimes hostile environments. The institution will endeavour to provide staff and students organising or participating in academic off-campus activities in all environments with sufficient training and information to enable them to make a suitable assessment of the risks and take steps to avoid, reduce or mitigate any risk identified.

1.Definition of fieldwork and offsite activities

Fieldwork and offsite activities are defined as being “any work carried out by staff or students for the purposes of teaching, research or other activities while representing the institution off-site”. This definition will therefore include activities as diverse as attendance at conferences and recruitment fairs, or undertaking social science interviews, as well as activities more traditionally associated with the term fieldwork such as survey/collection work carried out by geologists or biologists. Source USHA Guidance on Health and Safety in Fieldwork 2011

2.Aim of the policy and guidance

This policy and guidance implements the requirements of the USHA Guidance on Health and Safety in Fieldwork 2011 and sets out the University of Brighton requirements to be complied with, by all parties, at each stage of fieldwork safety planning.

This policy and guidance provides health and safety guidance to Heads of School, Fieldwork Leaders and all other staff involved in the organisation, planning or delivery of fieldwork. It assists in the development of local School and Departmental health and safety arrangements for fieldwork.

By following this guidance Schools and Departments will reduce the likelihood of accidents and ill health to both students and staff arising from activities undertaken on fieldwork.

3.Scope and exclusions

This policy and guidance applies to ‘any work carried out by staff or students for the purposes of teaching, research or other activities while representing the institution off-site’.The policy and guidance applies to individual researchers as well as supervised study.

• This policy and guidance does not apply to activities undertaken by students whilst on student work placement for which the university has no direct control. Such activity is the responsibility of the host organisation.

• The policy and guidance does not apply to offsite activities undertaken by staff whilst employed by companies in respect of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. Such work is under the control of the host organisation.

• The policy and guidance applies to all participants, including all persons from external organisations, supply staff, contractors and agency workers.

The University of Brighton Executive Board (UEB) has taken a risk based decision that no travel on university business by staff or students, is permitted to destinations where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advises against travel.

This decision has been made taking into account the limited resources that can be provided to support activities in extreme risk areas. It is the position of the UEB that the university has a legal responsibility to limit risk and liability and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those engaged in both onsite and offsite activities. This decision applies to all research, teaching, or other university activities including those being carried out by staff and students from home destination countries.

4.0Roles and Responsibilities

4.1Vice-Chancellor and/or Deputy Vice Chancellor

The Vice-Chancellor has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that suitable arrangements are in place within Schools for the safe conduct of fieldwork.

The Vice-Chancellor has overall and final approval authority for fieldwork escalated to the University Executive Board.

4.2University Executive Board

The University Executive Board has responsibility for considering and approving applications to undertake extreme risk category fieldwork.

Where no consensus is achieved in relation to approving fieldwork applications, the Vice Chancellor’s decision is final.

4.3Heads of School and Directors of Department

The Head of School (HoS) or Director of Department is the person with overall responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of all participants involved in fieldwork organised by his/her school/department.

Heads of Schoolmust escalate approval for extreme risk fieldwork to the University Executive Board (UEB). Heads must also, in the first instance discuss any concerns with Occupational Safety and Health Services.

The Head of School must ensure:

1.There are satisfactory local arrangements for planning and organising fieldwork;

2. A competent fieldwork leader is appointed for each fieldwork venture having taken full account of their experience and qualifications relevant to the fieldwork proposed;

3. The conduct and role of participants are clearly understood;

4.An appropriate level of supervision by staff with relevant experience and training is provided for work in the field;

5.Authorisation is withheld until the planning and risk assessment process is complete;

6.Seek advice from Occupational Safety and Health Services when determining approval for high risk fieldwork and travel to destinations advised against by the government;

7.Adequate financial resources are available to fieldwork leaders to enable procurement of training, equipment and provision of additional staffing to support the fieldwork; and

8. Fieldwork leaders are empowered to act in the interest of safety, to change itineraries or abort the fieldwork if necessary.

9. That they escalate extreme risk category research fieldwork applications to the Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise.

4.3.1Assessment of fieldwork leader competence

Heads of School must undertake an assessment of the competence of fieldwork leaders and independent fieldworkers to ensure training is commensurate with the level of risk.

Heads of School must include funding requirements for fieldwork health and safety training in departmental plans, considering the resources and effort required to ensure and maintain competency of fieldworkers and managers.

4.4Occupational Safety and Health Services

Occupational Safety and Health Services provides the following services:

• provides advice and guidance on all aspects of fieldwork safety.
• is responsible for monitoring conformance to this policy through inspection and audit programmes.
• provides training in the planning and safety management of fieldwork and can recommended training providers for specialist requirements such as field first aid.
• advises the Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise on the health and safety aspects of proposals to undertake extreme risk fieldwork.
• provides an enhanced level of advisory support to Safety HUB Managers for all high or extreme risk category fieldwork.

Occupational Safety and Health Services has access to third party specialist providers, such as Red24 and TOR International who specialize in the provision of travel risk information and a network of other university safety departments using ‘jiscmail’ lists.

4.4.1Safety HUB Managers

Safety HUB Managers are responsible for assisting academic staff in the development of school fieldwork safety management arrangements.

Safety HUB Managers are responsible for providing advice and assistance to the Head of School and Fieldwork Leaders in order to implement the local safety arrangements.

Safety HUB Managers have a role in monitoring and auditing to verify that safety management systems are functioning appropriately.

Notify theDeputy Director of Occupational Safety and Health Services of any applications that may fall into high or extreme risk category fieldwork(refer to section 6 on Risk profiling and risk assessment for details of risk levels).

4.4.2Occupational Health

The Occupational Health Advisers are available to provide travel health advice tostaff and students to support the planning of offsite activities. The team has access to travel health professional advisory services and can provide specific advice on vaccination requirements and ill health avoidance. The team provides specialist advice on first aid requirements for fieldwork.

The Occupational Health provides advice on the actions to be taken where a participant declares a pre-existing medical condition.

4.5Fieldwork Leader

The fieldwork leader has overall responsibility for planning and supervising fieldwork to ensure it is managed safely. They shall:

• Comply with this policy and any local rules established within the School/Department;
• Ensure that fieldwork is properly planned (see Planning);
• Undertake a fieldwork threat analysis (see section on Threat Analysis);
• Complete a fieldwork risk assessment;
• Allocate specific supervisory duties to participants;
• Liaise closely with the School Safety Adviser (where appointed) in planning new fieldwork;
• Obtain medical declarations and personal information from all participants and check the forms for any medical conditions that may affect the participant’s ability to safely perform the activities requested. To refer on, where necessary, to Occupational Health for advice;
• Allocate a competent person to lead each sub-group where necessary; and
• Delegate explicit responsibility to the leader of each sub-group to know the total number and identities of the participants they are responsible for supervising.

The fieldwork leader is responsible for ensuring a suitable and sufficient risk assessment is in place and for ensuring that all safety precautions are observed for the duration of the fieldwork. This duty may be passed to other responsible persons (e.g. Boat Skipper) but the overall duty to ensure the safety of the fieldwork remains with the fieldwork leader.

In high risk areas such as quarries, mines, cliffs, on water, or in situations with a foreseeable risk of violence, this may require active monitoring.

It is important that, during supervised fieldwork, there is a clear command structure within the group. While this structure may be perfectly obvious on most fieldwork, there can be confusion when command passes from the Fieldwork Leader to others.

It is the responsibility of the fieldwork leader to ensure that the level of supervision is adequate for any given situation, and to make necessary adjustments to itineraries in the interests of safety, including, where necessary, cessation of an activity.

The fieldwork leader must be explicitly empowered by the HoS/HoD to discharge these responsibilities and also to implement emergency or contingency plans if necessary.

The fieldwork leader is also responsible for ensuring that all instructions issued to participants are comprehensible and appropriate, that control measures identified in risk assessments are implemented in practice and for ensuring that dynamic risk assessments are carried out if necessary.

It is the responsibility of the fieldwork leader to notify the Head of School in instances where fieldwork is planned to be conducted in countries where the FCO advises “against all travel or against all but essential travel”.

4.5.1Training and competence of fieldwork team

Review training needs for fieldworkers regularly. This can be achieved as part of the annual staff appraisal where such a mechanism exists.

The quantity, level and range of training required for all fieldworkers and participants must be commensurate with the risks, and must be appropriate to enable the safe undertaking of all activities

Inexperienced leaders to start by leading lower risk fieldwork having first shadowed an experienced leader.

Encourage staff to maintain a reflective log of their fieldwork experience which may be used towards evidence of competence.

During supervised fieldwork put a robust system in place to assess and train participants before allowing any indirectly supervised fieldwork. Proper understanding and an ability to operate incident and emergency protocols should be in place.

4.6Independent or lone working fieldworkers

Independent fieldworkers undertaking solo travel or self managed fieldwork have a responsibility to take reasonable care in their activities. In practice they will assume many of the duties of the fieldwork leader and therefore some of their responsibilities, which should be agreed in advance with the HoS/HoD or other appropriately qualified member of staff (e.g. Divisional leader, Fieldwork Module leader).

4.7Fieldwork participants

It is the responsibility of participants/members of a fieldwork team to follow any instruction given to them by a supervisor and to bring any questions or problemsto the attention of their supervisor. Participants must acknowledge their own responsibilities for the health and safety of both themselves and others.

The authority and responsibilities of the fieldwork leader, or any other designated supervisor in relation to safety, must be clearly defined and understood by all members of the party. Participants unwilling to accept this authority must be excluded from the fieldwork.

4.8Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise

The Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise is responsible for reviewing preliminary outline proposals for research applications to undertake extreme risk category fieldwork.

The Pro Vice Chancellor is responsible for obtaining specialist advice from the Deputy Director of Occupational Safety and Health Services and the Insurance Officein support of preliminary outline proposal reviews.

The Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise is responsible for escalating acceptable reviewed applications to the UEB for an approval decision.

5.0Five phases of fieldwork and offsite activities safety management

Fieldwork safety management consists of five phases. The initial feasibility phase, detailed planning, authorisation by Head of School (or higher level if escalated), application of the fieldwork guidance requirements in the field and a review and revision of arrangements following the fieldwork.

Fig 1 Showing the five phases of fieldwork andoffsite activities safety management

5.1FeasibilityPhase

The University of Brighton Executive Board (UEB) has taken a risk based decision that no travel on University business by staff or students, is permitted to destinations where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advises against travel.

This decision has been made taking into account the limited resources that can be provided to support activities in extreme risk areas. It is the position of the UEB that the University has a legal responsibility to limit risk and liability, and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those on engaged in both onsite and offsite activities. This decision applies to all research, teaching, or other university activities including those being carried out by staff and students from home destination countries that fall into the FCO categories stated below.