Evidence submitted by the Scout Association
SUMMARY AND
KEY POINTS
1. Scouting is the world's largest coeducational
youth organisation for girls and boys, with 28 million members
worldwide and half-a-million members here in the UK.
2. In the UK, there are over 70,000 men
and women regular volunteer adult leaders. There are also a further
100,000 adult other volunteers and helpers who assist those leaders.
3. Scouting is provided by these adult volunteers
in some 8,000 local Scout Groups across diverse communities. They
meet in a wide variety of settings including community centres,
church halls and mosques, schools, and premises owned by local
Scout Groups themselves.
4. Scouting warmly supports the concepts
behind the proposed Compensation Bill.
5. Scouting's experience is that the increasing
burden of regulatory legislation, trustees' compliance and the
threat of litigation does have a negative impact on its efforts
to recruit and retain the adult volunteers vital to its activities.
6. Much of Scouting's educational programme
is based on introducing young people to learning through adventure
in the outdoors, whilst the organisation is experiencing an increasing
detrimental impact of an anti-risk culture.
7. Currently, 30,000 girls and boys are
on the waiting list to join Scouting. They are denied the opportunity
because it is proving increasingly difficult to recruit enough
volunteer adult leaders.
8. This is not occasional "volunteering"
of just a few hours each month without responsibility; this is
committed volunteering of free time by adults on a regular weekly,
formal and responsible basis, and with acceptance of undertaking
training.
9. Scouting has identified that its most
efficient and effective approach to managing its insurance arrangements
is through its own insurance captive, and its own insurance subsidiary
regulated by the FSA.
10. Provision of insurance cover costs The
Scout Association £3-million per annum, more than 10% of
the charity's expenditure
VOLUNTEERS' EXPERIENCE:
MYTH OR
REALITY
11. Regardless of any statistics from the
insurance industry on trends in numbers or size of claims made
or claims settled, there is no doubt that for the volunteers who
give freely of their time then the "compensation culture"
is a reality.
12. In a survey of over 1,100 volunteer
youth leaders undertaken only in December 2005, the responses
were very clear:
— 49% agree or strongly agree that
retention of existing volunteer leaders is made more difficult
because of fears of being sued.
— 69% agree or strongly agree that
recruitment of new volunteer leaders is made more difficult because
of fears of being sued.
13. Even more significantly:
— 92% agree or strongly agree that
risk-aversion is affecting the range and nature of activities
being offered to young people.
14. The areas of greatest concern about
being sued for compensation are:
— Adventurous activities 94%.
IMPACT ON
VOLUNTEER RETENTION
AND RECRUITMENT
15. The data evidences the extent of the
genuine perceptions of volunteers who are reasonable members of
our community. These perceptions form the reality and the fears
that are driving them away from committed volunteering at the
same time as there is an increasing demand by the parents and
the young people themselves for the activities they are seeking
to provide.
16. On the one hand, we have increasing
numbers and waiting lists; on the other, we have a culture that
is increasing fear, concerns and recruitment challenges regarding
litigation and compensation.
IMPACT ON
THE NATURE
OF ACTIVITIES
17. The level of 92% agreement or strong
agreement that risk-aversion is affecting the range and nature
of activities being offered to young people is particularly worrying.
18. An educational organisation cannot make
life totally risk free, and should not try to nor be expected
to try to. Young people need to be helped to identify risk and
to learn to manage risk for themselves.
19. With a view to the development of enterprising
individuals and an enterprising society, it is important for young
people to learn for themselves how to assess risks and manage
risks. Of course this is in the context of assessed parameters,
but the experience needs to be real in order to be developmental.
"It is better for young people to take responsibility for
low level risk activities on their own than high risk activities
necessitating all decision being taken by adults" (John Huskins).
20. That is part of what Scouting offers,
and this needs to be acknowledged by parents, by the courts and
by the wider community.
Risk management
21. Scouting's adult volunteer training
over the past 10 years has included a significant focus on risk-assessment
and risk-management.
22. Through training sessions and through
specially targeted resource material (that is freely available
on the web at www.scouts.org.uk as well as in hard copy), volunteer
leaders are provided with simple yet effective tools and practices
to help them make informed judgements about the nature and suitability
of all proposed activities.
23. This applies not only to the obvious
areas of adventurous activities and expeditions, but also to what
is seen as the routine programme of green-field camps, weekly
meetings and low-level hikes.
24. Scouting's rules and procedures reflect
this approach.
25. If a volunteer leader in Scouting properly
follows the rules, procedures and risk-management guidance, then
they can expect to be supported by the organisation.
26. For those few occasions where there
is genuine failure of leadership, then the Association provides
insurance cover for its members, and is also able to employ its
own organisational sanctions.
LEGAL LIABILITY
INSURANCE
27. The cost of liability insurance remains
a key issue facing the organisation. More than 10% of The Scout
Association's expenditure is to provide insurance cover; this
amounts to £3 million per annum.
28. The Association has only been able to
maintain appropriate cover because it has its own captive insurance
company, which it set up several years ago. Without this company
it is very likely that the Association could not have afforded
the huge increases in insurance premiums in the last few years,
and particularly following the change in the market after the
events of 9/11, without dramatic curtailment of its educational
activities.
29. The challenge appears to be that society
is slipping into the realms of absolute legal liability, where
the claimant no longer has to prove negligence—the fact
of their injury is taken as de facto evidence of that.
The defendant is increasingly being required to prove innocence
against an assumption of guilt.
30. Given that there is (usually) an insurance
scheme with what is seen as a "deep pocket", it appears
that claims are often brought far too speedily, motivated often
by pecuniary gain and accelerated by specialist claims companies
anxious to market their services for their own profit objectives.
31. This inevitably impacts on an organisation's
ability to obtain affordable cover for liability risks that they
could not possibly take on themselves.
COMPENSATION BILL
32. The Scout Association welcomes the proposals
for legislation to relieve the burden of the "compensation
culture" on adult volunteers, and sincerely hopes that the
legislation will address its subject matter strongly and effectively,
to the greater benefit of the voluntary sector as a whole.
33. Hopefully, the Bill will discourage
trivial, nuisance and frivolous claims, and reduce the sense of
this (often-unfounded) fear whilst still acknowledging that genuine
claims need genuine and sensitive responses, and that all stakeholders
need to address risk-management with an informed constructive
attitude
34. Scouting firmly supports Clause One
of the Compensation Bill as published (namely the reference to
courts considering a claim of negligence having regard to the
desirability or public benefit of the activity), and would have
supported three of the amendments that were proposed and discussed
at the Grand Committee of the House of Lords, namely that:
(a) this be amended from "may"
do this to "shall" do this;
(b) "public benefit" be defined
so as to include "for the advancement of education";
and
(c) there be inclusion of reference to where
the defendant is a volunteer leader with parental permission acting
as a reasonable parent.
35. Scouting would offer support for the
judiciary and any other interested party to undertake awareness
training to understand the risks and risk-management associated
with educational adventurous activities.
Derek Twine
Chief Executive
The Scout Association
January 2006
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