The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is urging those responsible for children during outings to ensure their safety through proper planning and supervision. Additionally those responsible for public places should ensure that they have completed a risk assessment and taken sensible precautions to prevent access to potentially dangerous areas.
These warnings follow the conclusion of prosecutions against Tameside MBC and Clockwork Day Nursery Ltd following an incident where a four-year-old boy on a Nursery Holiday Club outing slipped 24 metres down an unprotected water channel in the Council's Stamford Park, Ashton under Lyne, and became impaled on a tree branch.
Tameside MBC of Wellington Road, Ashton under Lyne pleaded guilty to two charges under health and safety legislation at Manchester Crown Court, and were sentenced for one offence incorporating both contraventions, fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £23,565 costs.
At a previous hearing at Trafford Magistrates Court Clockwork Day Nursery Ltd of Stamford Street East, Ashton under Lyne was fined £21,000 and ordered to pay £6,779.10 costs after pleading guilty to two charges. They appealed against the sentence at Manchester Crown Court and but the sentence remained unchanged at a fine of £21,000 plus costs of £6,779.
HSE Inspector Catherine Willars said:
"These cases are not about stopping children having fun. Thousands of similar trips take place up and down the country safely every year. Outings can be important for children's development - it keeps them fit, helps them learn social skills and a sense of responsibility.
"However, there is an obligation to protect vulnerable people from dangers. This was a serious incident that could have easily been avoided had simple, sensible precautions been taken by the Nursery and the Council.
The outing on 7 June 2006 involved 20 children, aged between 4 to 11 years, visiting a public park. A four-year-old boy slipped and fell down the accessible and unprotected steeply sloping channel into a debris filled culvert, where he became impaled on a tree branch and received serious internal injuries.
Catherine Willars added:
Tameside MBC failed to recognise the potential for danger and did not make a suitable assessment of risks to the public, and in particular children, from the accessible and unprotected water channel. The Council have now acted to address the risks of the spillway and the Park remains open to the public.
The Nursery did not carry out a sufficient risk assessment for the outing and failed to ensure that the injured child was not put at risk. Children as young as 4 years old were allowed to play away from an 'agreed' area, unsupervised, for lengthy periods. This resulted in a group of children trying to cross the water channel during which a young boy lost his footing at the edge of the running water, slipped, and, with nothing to hold on to, fell 24 metres down a steep slope into a culvert filled with debris.
Supervision is critical and should reflect the needs of the party, the activities being carried out, the age and ability range of the children and the risks of the location.
Organised trips are now carried on by the Nursery with improved safety arrangements.
1. Tameside MBC was charged with breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, for failing to ensure that persons not in their employment, including the injured child, were not exposed to risks to their health or safety, and with failing to carry out a suitable risk assessment and to take all reasonably practicable steps to deal with the risks posed by the spillway, as required by Regulation 3 (1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Clockwork Day Nursery Ltd was charged with breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, for failing to ensure that persons not in their employment, including the injured child were not exposed to risks to their health and safety, and with failing to carry out a suitable risk assessment, as required by Regulation 3 (1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
2. The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 Section 3(1) states:
"It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety"
3. Regulation 3 (1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states:
Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of:
4. DCSF guidance 'Health and Safety of Pupils on educational visits', although primarily for staff in schools and LAs in England, is also useful for staff in nurseries see:
5. Further information on managing trips can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/schooltrips/index.htm
Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.
Issued on behalf of HSE by COI News and Pr North West
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