Risk in play: Is risk assessment the answer or the problem

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Risk in play Is risk assessment the answer or
the problem?
Designing healthy and inclusive outdoor public
spaces for young people
UWE Bristol-EPSRC-AHRB Workshop June 2005

• David Ball
• Centre for Decision Analysis Risk Management
• Middlesex University
• www.mdx.ac.uk/risk

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• My background
• educated as physicist
• worked for Greater London Council from 1974-89
• first (presumed brief) encounter with childrens
  play as an issue in 1986
• Director of Centre for Environmental Risk
  Management at UEA from 1989-98
• Professor of Risk Management at Middlesex
  University since 1998
• play is still an issue..

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In relation to childrens play, things I have
done
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• A brief history (as I see it) ..
• Pre 1970s robust attitude to risk
• The 80s and 90s concern over safety dominated
• 3. The revolution of the 00s and the shifting
  emphasis to balanced risk taking

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The 80s and 90s

• widespread concern over safety
• campaigns by interest groups
• growth in litigation
• diversion of resources for provision into hard
  and soft safety measures
• decline in number and quality of playgrounds

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The Daisy Chain Survey

• A 2002 UK Survey by the Childrens Society the
  Childrens Play Council of childrens own
  experiences finds
• Children prevented from playing with water,
  climbing trees, using playground equipment,
  riding bikes skateboards, and (even) making
  daisy chains
• Playgrounds are boring
• recent additions include playing conkers,
  snowballs and .football

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And where has this quest for safety really got us?
Children are bored
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.and seek danger if it is not provided
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And where has this quest for safety really got us?
Children are obese
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And where has this quest for safety really got us?
The risk has not changed
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The number of injuries arising from playground
accidents appears to have hardly changed since
measurements began.
this is worrying (though not unusual)
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And where has this quest for safety really got us?
Playgrounds have doubled in price
A hard safety measure
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And where has this quest for safety really got us?
No one is happy except perhaps BTR Bloomer
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The Revolutionary 00s

• excessive concern over safety
• lop-sided campaigns
• growth in litigation
• diversion of resources into hard and soft safety
  measures
• decline in number and quality of playgrounds

Now increasingly recognised that these things
must be challenged
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One problem lies in risk assessment itself
Risk assessment is required by law (the Health
and Safety at Work Act 1974)
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A few key definitions..
A HAZARD is something with the potential to cause
harm RISK is the probability a hazard will cause
a specified type of harm RISK ASSESSMENT is the
task of deciding what hazards exist, how big the
risk is, and possible consequences RISK
MANAGEMENT (or DECISION MAKING) is the process of
deciding what to do about a risk
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Identify hazards
Assess the risk
Decide what to do and implement (manage the risk)
Assessment criteria a philosophy
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Risk assessors appointed by solicitors are
frequently engineers or have an engineering
background. Their experience is mainly in office
and workplace environments. Safety to them
usually means compliance with Standards, codes of
practice etc and/or the removal of foreseeable
risks
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What constitutes a foreseeable risk?
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A Legal Case
A child fell off the bridge and hurt herself The
expert (an engineer) for the Claimant argued that
the bridge was unsafe because the sides had no
infill and constituted a foreseeable risk The
Council took away the bridge But the judge later
decided it was okay
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(No Transcript)
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The trouble with safety
What is safety? How safe should things be?
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Answer Safety means different things to
different people
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For example, ask Greenpeace or FoE about GMOs or
nuclear power and safety means zero risk
Ask an engineer and it generally means compliance
with written protocols or, failing that, removal
of foreseeable risks
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Ask the HSE and it means Managing risk properly
Valuable and free document
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Safety
Compliance with standards
Zero risk
Managing risk properly
?
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HSEs TOR Framework
Risk level intolerable
Risks must be reduced until as low as reasonably
practicable (HSWA 1974)
Direction of increasing risk
Risk level broadly acceptable
We do not normally try to eliminate risk. We
tolerate it in return for the benefits of the
activity. Hence TOR or tolerability of risk.
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A key question about the TOR framework
How do you define the boundaries of the broadly
acceptable/ALARP region and the
ALARP/intolerable region?
1 in 1,000/annum or 10,000/annum chance of death
1 in a million/annum chance of death
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Where does this place playground risk on the TOR
framework?
1 in a million/annum chance of death
Playground risk
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What judges have said.
It is the duty of an employer, in considering
whether some precaution should be taken against
foreseeable risk, to weigh, on the one hand, the
magnitude of the risk, the likelihood of an
accident happening and the possible seriousness
of the consequences if an accident does happen,
and, on the other hand, the difficulty and
expense and any other disadvantage of taking the
precaution. Lord Reid, 1956
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The Duty of Care
"The common duty of care is a duty to take such
care as in all the circumstances of the case is
reasonable, to see that the visitor will be
reasonably safe in using the premises for the
purposes for which he is invited or permitted by
the occupier to be there" (Occupiers Liability
Act 1957, S2(2)).
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What the Childrens Play Council has said.
Available from Childrens Play Information
Service cpis_at_ncb.org.uk
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Summary statement
Children need and want to take risks when they
play. Play provision aims to respond to these
needs and wishes by offering children
stimulating, challenging environments for
exploring and developing their abilities. In
doing this, play provision aims to manage the
level of risk so that children are not exposed to
unacceptable risks of death or serious injury.
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Any injury is distressing for children and those
who care for them, but exposure to the risk of
injury, and experience of actual minor injuries,
is a universal part of childhood. Such
experiences also have a positive role in child
development. When children sustain or witness
injuries they gain direct experience of the
consequences of their actions and choices, and
through this an understanding of the extent of
their abilities and competences. (Managing Risk
in Play Provision, Play Safety Forum, 2002)
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What the HSE has said.
HSE Statement on Paddling Pools (6 January 2005)
Sensible health and safety is about managing
risks, not eliminating them all. HSE is not in
the business of stamping out simple pleasures
whenever they appear and at whatever cost. We
recognise the benefits to childrens development
of play, which necessarily involves some risk,
and this shouldnt be sacrificed in the pursuit
of the unachievable goal of absolute safety.
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A Key Question about Risk Assessment
If the information from risk assessments is
based not purely on facts but on beliefs and
values about what is sufficiently safe, whose
beliefs/values should we use?
e.g. How could you make a decision on the
desirability in a playground of, say, a firemans
pole or a wobbly bridge? Neither would be
permitted in a factory or an office.
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Back to VALUES
Risk assessment
Identify hazards
How big is the risk?
Risk management (decision making)
Is the risk tolerable?

• Tolerability depends on
• Magnitude of risk
• Benefits of activity
• Practicability of safety interventions
• Social preferences
• Risk transfer phenomena

Key
Intrinsic human judgements (and therefore values)
Overtly entails human values
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Values in Risk Assessment
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If the definition of risk tolerability depends
on the benefits of the activity, what benefits
should be considered?

• Suggested benefits of playgrounds
• Having fun
• Learning to socialise
• Exploring real risk and discovering ones
  physical limitations in reasonable safety
• Attracting children away from more dangerous
  places

Risk decision making requires you to balance
these benefits against the risks of injury in
deciding what is desirable
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PLUS.
Every time you provide a new play opportunity in
a community you increase the number of play
related injuriesbut you also increase child
safety overall by sucking them away from worse
dangers (plus you improve their fun health
generally!)