EVIDENCE SUBMISSION
Lord Young
Review of health and safety and the compensation culture
July 2010
1. The NASUWT welcomes the opportunity to comment on Lord Young’s cross-government Review of health and safety and the compensation culture.
2. The NASUWT is the largest teachers’ union in the UK.
GENERAL COMMENTS
3. The NASUWT promotes the vision of a workforce fully involved in health and safety management, supported by a vigorous system of workplace health and safety representatives operating in partnership with employers. The Union believes that where the Government and employers consult and work constructively with workers and trade unions to solve problems together in partnership, there will be safer, healthier and more productive workplaces.
4. However, the NASUWT is disappointed by the short amount of time given to provide comments or views to Lord Young’s Review. The deadline for responses of 6 July 2010 severely impacts upon the Union’s ability to fully consult with members. The NASUWT strongly recommends that a full
consultation is undertaken on any detailed proposals that emerge from Lord Young’s initial Review, which adheres to the seven consultation criteria of the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultation and, in particular, allows for ‘at least 12 weeks with consideration given to longer timescales where feasible and sensible’.
5. The NASUWT is committed to working with the Government to improve the working conditions of teachers as a basis for delivering even better educational outcomes for children and young people. The improvement of health, safety and welfare management systems in schools benefits both teachers and pupils. The Union would welcome a meeting with Lord Young to further examine the issues raised in this initial response to his review of health and safety and the compensation culture.
6. The Union is deeply disappointed not to be included in the list of key organisations asked to provide comments or views for Lord Young to take into account before reporting his findings to the Prime Minister this Summer. The NASUWT has thousands of health and safety and other Workplace Representatives and over a quarter of a million members in around 25,000 schools and colleges throughout the UK.
7. The World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted that by 2020 depression will be the biggest single disease burden, costly to individuals, families, communities and the economy as a whole through lowered productivity, absenteeism and unemployment. Research undertaken by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), has shown that school teaching is one of the occupations with higher than average levels of common mental health disorders and further research has demonstrated that stress and professional burnout among teachers in the UK has contributed significantly to an unnecessary and wasteful exodus from the profession.
8. The NASUWT-commissioned research report Teachers’ Mental Health: A study exploring the experiences of teachers with work-related stress and
mental health problems1, found that the following factors impact on
teachers’ mental health: high levels of work pressure, workload, conflicting expectations, impractical innovations, unacceptable pupil behaviour, unsupportive working environments, unsatisfactory workplace interpersonal and intergroup relationships, bad school management, unacceptable or bullying senior leader behaviour and lack of support from management. Teachers’ stress and mental health problems diminish job performance, productivity, enthusiasm and/or commitment. This leads to increased absenteeism, a decrease in ‘good will’ availability and withdrawal of extracurricular support and other non-teaching responsibilities.
9. Teaching is widely recognised as one of the most stressful occupations but a healthy workforce is central to delivering healthy outcomes for pupils. The recent case of Nottingham teacher Peter Harvey serves as a tragic reminder of what can happen when schools fail in their duty of care towards a teacher and the NASUWT has written to the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, raising concerns and asking for an early meeting to discuss what steps might be taken to seek to ensure that such a situation might be avoided in future.
10.In addition to the above, the NASUWT report Safe to Teach?, published in 2008, found that:
• one in six teachers had been physically assaulted by a pupil in the previous two years whilst on the school or college premises;
• half of all the teachers in the survey had been subjected to verbal abuse whilst at work in the previous two years;
• incidents of work-related stress affected over two thirds of all teachers who responded to the survey;
• the largest single causal factor of work-related stress amongst teachers is excessive working hours; and
The Teachers’ Mental Health: A study exploring the experiences of teachers with work-related stress and mental health problems report is available on the NASUWT website at www.nasuwt.org.uk/TrainingEventsandPublications/NASUWTPublications/ResearchProjects/
• the majority of respondents (69%) reported having suffered from work-related stress and in more than three in ten (31%) cases this resulted in members needing to take time off work.
11.Better protection for workers and the public must be at the heart of the Government’s review of health and safety legislation. However, the NASUWT is concerned about reports from some quarters advocating the sweeping aside of vital health and safety laws. The NASUWT believes that the public would be wholly unsupportive of a review into health and safety that operates from such a partisan perspective.
12. Announcing the review, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, criticised the ‘rise of the compensation culture over the last ten years’ and called for a ‘sensible new approach’ that does not ‘overwhelm businesses with red tape’. However, this is despite numerous reports that have found that the number of compensation claims made has decreased over the past decade. Research undertaken for the NASUWT also shows that in many schools and colleges there is a significant and high level of under-reporting of health and safety incidents, accidents and near misses, which further suggest that the level of compensation claims is limited. The Union therefore urges the Government to ensure that the Review is conducted on the basis of sound evidence.
13.Furthermore, the NASUWT believes that health and safety regulation needs to be strengthened, not weakened by attempts to chip away at the already inadequate health and safety inspection and enforcement regimes. The Union has previously made representations to the Government to secure sufficient funding to enable the HSE to fulfil its inspection and enforcement responsibilities. There remains an urgent need to boost the capacity of HSE.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS NASUWT
General issues
14.Protecting all workers from accidents, assaults and abuse must be an unequivocal priority of the Government and employers. Effective health and safety policies and practices are even more essential at a time when thousands of people each year are killed or seriously injured in UK workplaces.
15.The NASUWT is concerned to read comments attributed to Lord Young in The Times that ‘people occasionally get killed, it’s unfortunate but it’s part of life’. The Union has received numerous representations from individuals who have been deeply upset and angered by these reported remarks. The Union believes that such a position is unacceptable for the Government’s chief health and safety adviser and would welcome confirmation that Lord Young disassociates himself from these remarks.
Health and safety legislation
16.Risks in the workplace and from all aspects of life cannot be eliminated. The NASUWT supports HSE in promoting a sensible and proportionate approach to dealing with risks. Research undertaken by the NASUWT demonstrates that in many schools and colleges, the failure to prioritise health and safety matters means that the workforce is being placed at high levels of risk, pupils’ welfare is being jeopardised and the law is being flouted regularly and on a significant scale. There is no better example of this than on the issue of compliance with the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006. The research report Safe to Teach? found that asbestos remains a significant risk in many schools and colleges, but in a substantial number of workplaces, asbestos is not properly contained or sealed off. A copy of the Safe to Teach? report is attached.
17.The NASUWT is deeply dismayed by suggestions that health and safety legislation might be disapplied from some groups of workers, creating a
two-tier approach to health and safety in which the lives of some groups of workers are more expendable than others.
18.There is overwhelming evidence that confirms that disapplying health and safety legislation from any group of workers would endanger the health, safety and welfare of employees and members of the public. Furthermore, it is highly likely that removing health and safety protection from teachers and other education workers would have a severely detrimental impact on the quality of education service provided in schools and other educational establishments.
Educational visits and learning outside the classroom
19.The Union notes the comments of the Prime Minister that ‘adventure training and other outdoor activity by schools…allow our children to develop character, show leadership and work as a team – and it’s a tragedy that they are being denied these possibilities because teachers and organisers fear the consequences if something goes wrong’. When they are properly organised and relevant to the curriculum, educational visits and learning outside the classroom activities can enable pupils to be more engaged and enthusiastic learners.
20.Where sensible risk management and appropriate risk assessments are undertaken, learning outside the classroom activities can both broaden and enhance pupils’ learning opportunities.
21.However, this does not negate the need for rigorous risk assessment or risk management practices by schools or other education providers, and there is no sensible or rational justification for diluting regulation in this area. Educational visits, together with other activities undertaken in schools, provide an excellent opportunity to educate young people to be ‘risk-aware’ not ‘risk-averse’. The Review should not, however, make the mistake of concluding that educating young people about risk is the sole
responsibility of schools. It is essential to recognise that parents and carers have a particular role to play in educating young people to be ‘risk aware’ in all that they do.
22.The NASUWT strongly supports the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge Scheme launched in October 2008, which represents an important step towards minimising the risk of learning outside the classroom activities and improving schools’ access to high quality learning outside the classroom providers. The Quality Badge enables schools to identify providers that are reputable and manage risks appropriately. This initiative enables schools to minimise the administrative burdens associated with planning learning outside the classroom activities without compromising the safety of pupils and staff. The NASUWT calls on the Coalition Government to support and promote to schools the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge Scheme.
Prevention is better than cure
23.The Union believes that the business case for increasing resources for HSE is undeniable. It is estimated that preventing people from becoming ill or injured through work could, according to HSE and the TUC, save the public purse and business up to £32 billion through reduced costs associated with sickness absence, medical costs and compensation.
24.At present, the amount that the Government provides to HSE in funding is less than a third of the amount that the state pays out through the industrial injuries compensation scheme. The NASUWT believes strongly that increased levels of funding should be made available to HSE to enable it to undertake fully its remit for the prevention of illness and injury at work.
25.Too many employers do not give sufficient priority to workplace health and safety. The NASUWT believes that more resources need to be
allocated to ensure a dramatic increase in HSE inspector numbers and enforcement activity. The Union will continue to be a staunch advocate for additional and adequate funding for HSE to allow them to effectively discharge their health and safety enforcement duties.
The rise of the compensation culture over the last decade
26.Successive reports have demonstrated that the number of compensation claims has actually decreased over the past decade. The NASUWT’s experience is that members’ claims for compensation have also fallen in recent years. It would be plain wrong to state that there has been a rise in the number of compensation claims over the last decade.
27.The Union is therefore heartened to note the comments of David Cameron, the then Leader of the Opposition, in his speech to the Policy Exchange think-tank in December 2009, which noted: “The term ‘compensation culture’ is a toxic one in our country – and it is not entirely fair. Personal injury claims have actually remained largely static since the turn of the century. What is more, the problem is the perception we have allowed to develop that in Britain today, behind every accident there is someone who is personally culpable… someone who must pay. We see it in those adverts on television, which say that if you’ve suffered some fall or mishap, you can take legal action without much cost. We see it in the commercialising of lawyers’ incentives to generate litigation, through the system of enhanced success fees and referral fees which has led to a growth in ‘ambulance chasing’. We see it in the rising premiums and concerns of the insurance industry.”
28.It is clear that the problem of the ‘blame culture’, which is perpetuated by sections of the media and by ambulance-chasing legal companies, is at the heart of what is perceived to be a ‘compensation culture’. However, it is of utmost importance to recognise that where the actions or the negligence of an individual or organisation have caused an accident or
injury, appropriate sanctions should be imposed in line with the law and proper compensation paid. It is also critical to ensure that it is recognised that there is such a thing as a genuine accident.
29.The delay in introducing the appropriate legislative framework to regulate claims management companies should also be taken into consideration. Prior to the enactment of the Compensation Act 2006, it is reported that there were a significant number of unregulated claims management companies advertising and providing assistance on personal injury and other claims. The overriding objective of the regulation is to increase the protection of consumers of claims management services, while also tackling speculative practices that have created false and unreasonable expectations of the merits of a compensation claim that has been driven by profit rather than service to those members of the public who have genuine claims.
30.Notwithstanding this legislative objective, it can be argued that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as the regulator still struggles to maintain an adequate monitoring and compliance system with respect to claims management services. The MoJ has confirmed that in 2009, 143 businesses surrendered their authorisation and at the end of June 2009 around 400 more had either not returned renewal forms or had returned incomplete forms.
31.The NASUWT believes it to be imperative that the Review by Lord Young must provide evidence to substantiate the claim that there has been a rise in the compensation culture. Indeed, the evidence suggests strongly that better regulation, rather than deregulation, should be a priority and that the work of the MoJ should focus on ensuring compliance by claims management companies with the existing framework of legislation.
Chris Keates
For further information on the Union’s response, contact:
Michael Phillips
Senior Official (Salaries, Pensions and Conditions of Service)
NASUWT
Hillscourt Education Centre Rose Hill Rednal Birmingham B45 8RS 0121 453 6150 www.nasuwt.org.uk nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk NASUWT
