Lord Young’s Attack on ‘Elf & Safety’ and Ambulance Chasing

In his speech at the Conservative Party’s conference Lord Young has indicated that his report will deal with the compensation culture and free teachers from unnecessary paperwork burdens.

School trips were at the core of his speech, which suggested that unnecessary and burdensome paperwork, one of the major reasons teachers are put off taking visits, will be reduced.  Teachers will be allowed to exercise sensible judgement rather than try to document all options:

“Take our teachers. An important part of every child’s education is school outings. It is how they broaden their horizon, learn about the outside world. Every time a teacher wants to take their class out they have to fill in a twelve page form to cover every eventually – even the weather eight weeks in advance! This does nothing to make the day safer – that is up to the common sense of teacher on the day. But adding this unnecessary burden onto a teacher’s already heavy workload just makes it less likely that they will go. In the future they can just plan the outing.”

He was equally forthright about no-win, no-fee litigation, which he says is really the central problem, not necessarily Health & Safety itself:

“That is why Health and Safety now looms so large in business, in education, in the Health Service. Not to stop accidents happening, but to stop being sued.”

His report is due out in October, but he told the conference that it will be government policy, approved by the Cabinet and that the Prime Minister has asked him to stay on to see the changes through.

Full speech available at: Lord Young: Ending Labour's Health and Safety culture