Risky business

DIY cave in Western Australia

Education Business has recently featured two articles, by David Harvey and Brian Ogden, on the management of risk in outdoor adventure activities. It should be of no surprise to readers that the safety issue arises in that particular context, because the great outdoors is necessarily and unavoidably a risky place where bad things will inevitably happen from time to time should you go there. It is a fact that risk in the outdoors cannot be eliminated and by venturing there you take it on. Safety is never guaranteed.

Similar issues also apply throughout educational life and public life in general, though perhaps less starkly. For example, during the last few years concerns have been raised over safety as it relates to playground equipment, football games during break, swimming, science experiments in classrooms, sports days and fêtes, and even trees and bushes, which occasionally shed a branch or may have “poisonous” berries.

Important opportunities
This concern, however, was after an interval followed by another concern – that children and young people were being deprived of two things: important educational opportunities and the opportunity to experience life and hence to learn how to manage risk at a personal level. Life, after all, is a risky business from beginning to end. Somewhere and at some time it is necessary to face risk and learn the consequences of judging and misjudging it.

This latter concern became so great that by 2006 the government introduced new legislation in the form of The Compensation Act1. This was specifically in order to try to deter over-the-top requirements to take precautions against some risk of injury where those requirements might either prevent a desirable activity from taking place, or discourage persons from providing them.

This though is by no means the end of the story. In 2010 Lord Young made further recommendations to government in ‘Common sense, common safety’2 and this is even now being progressed by the Löfstedt Review3.

Exposure to risk
Outwardly, these events might seem unforgivingly dull, but the fact is that there are some very fundamental issues at stake that affect everyone. Crucial amongst them is that people, whether they be educators, pupils, students or members of the public, constantly and knowingly expose themselves to risks in order to acquire the benefits of some thing or some activity. Bunsen burners and chemistry experiments in class entail some danger but have immense value in raising interest and providing hands-on experiences. All sports pose some risk of injury, sometimes a high risk, but in general improve health and demeanour and provide enjoyment for many. And mature trees are things of beauty, provide shade on hot days, and are a part of the ecosystem.

The problem is, however, that the standard approaches to risk assessment which were largely fashioned in industry and which we are now expected to use, even in non-factory environments, seldom if ever acknowledge this trade-off between risk and benefit. Most risk assessments are couched in terms of identifying hazards, assessing risks, and then reducing, minimising or eliminating them by some means or other.

Reducing risk
With no reference to the effect of risk reduction measures upon the benefits, say, of leading a school outing, or conducting an experiment in class, risk reduction becomes an insatiable and boundless task which could eliminate much that is otherwise valued. Of course, most risk assessors are subconsciously aware of the importance of these things, but without an explicit requirement to think formally about them they receive piecemeal and variable recognition, and sometimes none.

For this reason, in writing ‘Common sense, common safety’, Lord Young proposed that within education there should be a shift to ‘risk-benefit assessment’ from the currently practiced ‘risk assessment.’ But this raises another issue. The implication of risk-benefit assessment is that we should, on contemplating whether some activity or some object ought to be permitted, weigh up its benefits (these might include health) against its risks of harm. If benefits outweigh risks, then logic suggests it should be sanctioned.

To be able to draw this conclusion obviously requires knowledge of both benefits and risks. But most health and safety professionals have no particular expertise in assessing the benefits of a classroom lesson, an educational outing, a tree or some other thing of beauty.

Even so far as health is concerned, the health issues that health and safety officers know about are mainly those of ill-health through exposure to, say, chemicals or through overuse of badly-adjusted chairs or VDUs. They do not include health benefits, physical and psychological, of educational activities and public life.

No wonder, then, that the media have had a field day exposing many ridiculous ‘’elf ‘n safety” stories that have, of late, included the evacuation of ‘Henman Hill/Murray Mount’ at Wimbledon and interruptions to test match cricket over marginal lighting conditions. But this too is dangerous, because health and safety, wisely pursued, has saved numerous lives in Britain over the last century. Its descent into ridicule will hinder any further progress.

Making better decisions
What can be done? In the autumn of 2011 we published our book ‘Public safety and risk assessment - making better decisions’4. This book seeks to demystify the business of health and safety, which is not really that difficult, and expose the value systems upon which it lies. It transpires that even the commonly expressed assertion that “health and safety is paramount” is simply not true and never has been as a general statement of position.

The guiding philosophy, established and fought for over centuries, has been one of doing what is reasonable to reduce risk, and not more than that. The meaning of reasonable is thus of interest. It means taking account of the severity and likelihood of harm posed by some hazard, and weighing up the cost and difficulty of controlling it and, importantly, any other effects on the benefits or social utility of the hazard or hazardous activity. Only by incorporating these latter considerations is it possible to contemplate how outdoor adventurous activities, popular sports, classroom experiments and mature trees could ever logically be permitted.

Resistance
There is, however, embedded resistance to risk-benefit assessment as described here, despite the fact that in other sectors, like food safety and healthcare decision making, it is common practice. There are a number of reasons for this.

Health and safety has become a vast industry in its own right and provides jobs and a way of life for a surprising number of people who, naturally, do not wish to relinquish their control. Secondly, it superficially appears that it has an unassailable claim upon the high moral ground. It is difficult to argue against more of some thing which sounds good, like injury prevention.

The way out of this dilemma, we think, is to adopt the Hippocratic line, namely, “to do no harm”, which permits the contemplation of both the risks and the benefits of activities as opposed to the single focus of the injury minimisation mantra. Do no harm has its own ethical appeal with which many people will be familiar, through its association with medicine, permitting a challenge for the high moral ground.

In conclusion, we express some sadness at the intention to abolish the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA). Of the specialist risk management agencies we have encountered, AALA appeared to us to be the one which most understood the risk-benefit issue and put it into practice. We think we know why too.

It’s because AALA inspectors have been steeped in adventure activities throughout their careers, long even before they joined AALA. Therefore, they have acquired what sociologists have described as “interactional expertise” through immersion and experience in the business. Just the stuff, we think, to enable one to make risk-benefit decisions.

This leads to a final and interesting question with which we leave you. If it be true that interactional expertise is the key to knowing how to balance risk and benefit, who then is best placed to make such decisions in the educational environment and, more specifically, in the outdoor education sector?

This is a crucial matter and one which was aired in court in 2010 in Regina (HSE) v North Yorkshire County Council5. The argument, in part, was over the relative amount of control that should have been exercised by health and safety personnel in NYCC’s headquarters, compared with that of outdoor adventure leaders actually on the job.

The jury, in that case, decided in favour of NYCC whose emphasis was on the latter. This likely remains, however, a point of contention between different worldviews. It is something that deserves careful consideration because, whichever route is taken, will have an effect on safety in outdoor education.

Notes
1. www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/29/contents
2. www.number10.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/402906_CommonSense_acc.pdf
3. www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/lofstedt-tor.pdf
4. www.routledge.com/books/details/9781849713818/
5. For a summary of some issues see Horizons (51), Autumn 2010, pp 22-24.

About the authors
David J. Ball is professor of risk management and director of the Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management at Middlesex University.
Laurence Ball-King has a Masters degree in risk management and a BA in economics and politics.