"Risk Assessment". Bah!!
One more piece of evidence, if we needed it, that the UK has become insane.
Health and Safety bods should feel quite at home. They're all a bunch of tossers
Originally Posted by Fiona
"Risk Assessment". Bah!!
H&S are blamed by incompetent councils/schools etc for all sorts of garbage dreamed up by people who just don't get it.
http://www.iosh.co.uk/index.cfm?go=d...1&thread=33871
Last edited by Pebble; 5th February 2008 at 10:10 PM.
Peeps, 'health and safety' has not spoilt any fun. The costs of closing the road and the time involved in carrying out essential risk assessments are the reasons for the cancellation.
It's easy to have a kneejerk reaction, but you can't expect a local council to carry the burden of liability in the event someone trips over and breaks their arm. Not doing a proper risk assessment would leave the council and the organisers open to negligence lawsuits.
I don't know why anyone would object to mandatory risk assessments. Were the days when 'anything went' regardless of the risks and consequences better? Not just for the those who might be injured, but for those who would be sued.
But the problem is that it does not seem possible to join in any kind of event in the UK and agree that it is entirely at your own risk. Why is it not possible to have such an event where people know they take the risk of, say, breaking an arm, but also know they can't sue anybody?
Compare this with the insane event every year in Spain where they let bulls loose in the streets and idiots try and get as near to them as possible without getting killed. (I don't in any way condone this treatment of bulls, by the way). If you want to take part, you take the risk. Where is the problem?
Because they take them way too far. For example, I'm in a kayak club. Having a risk assessment is reasonable, since people can get hurt. Except that every trip has exactly the same risks, so there is no point having anything more than one generic risk assessment that covers everything. Not only are we not allowed to do that anymore, we now have to have a trip assessment for socials. Even if it's just a few people meeting down the pub, we legally have to have a risk assessment, have dedicated sober people and have a desginated person in charge. For a couple of drinks in a pub. Risk assessments are fine in their place, but the way health and safety is done these days really is a complete joke.
The problem is slightly more complex than that, there is somewhat of a vicious circle going on.
Much (from experience I would say the vast majority), of recent restrictions on activity due to “health and safety” concerns are being driven by insurance companies, wary of a risk of being sued- and in many cases finding ways to up premiums (this was especially that case after 11/09/01- insurance premiums skyrocketed and more and more organisations were offered “discounts” for imposing ridiculously restrictions on their activities). So event organisers are stuck with these new, self imposed, restrictions, and they become the “industry norm”. However when an accident does happen (and anyone involved in health and safety knows that there will always be some accidents) and the inevitable court case ensues the judge will look at what is the “industry norm” for management of risk- which by this time is far greater than what would normally have been considered reasonable, as originations chase insurance discounts. If the organisation has not followed these new industry imposed standards, they will lose. If they have followed these industry imposed standards, they may still lose- and even if they in order to protect themselves from the cost of defence, insurance companies will start offering discounts for those organisations that agree to restrict their activities even further.
Health and safety has pretty much sod all to do with it, the insurance and legal industries are (inadvertently) pushing this agenda.
Of course the fact that many organisations use “cancelled due to health and safety restrictions” as an excuse for calling of an event that they just don’t want to run, for whatever reasons, doesn’t help matters at all.
As for the argument that you should be able to sign waivers to absolve an organisation of health and safety responsibility for you, you can do this for civil penalties, but not for criminal penalties.
In most cases the criminal law health and safety requirements are fairly straightforward (despite what some would have you believe), and so it should be possible to run such an event, however, even with full insurance waivers you are still legally required to carry insurance, and that insurance will possibly be prohibitively expensive, as insurance companies look at eth cost of defending claims involving whether the waiver was appropriate, binding and properly agreed to.
"not allowed" by who?
under which regulation?we legally have to have a risk assessment.
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