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August 21, 2013

Schools’ five-year bill for injury claims tops £800,000

Accidents involving children have cost schools in Wales more than £800,000 in damages over the last five years, a Freedom of Information request by BBC Wales has found.

The figures, released by Welsh councils, show that between 2008/09 and 2012/13 schools in the country were subject to 312 successful claims following injuries to pupils.

Payouts included £10,500 for a pupil “playfully pushed” into a window and £1000 for hot food splashing a child. Other cases related to a child running into goal posts and the incorrect application of first aid.

Welsh Conservatives’ shadow education minister Angela Burns AM accepted that some claims were genuine but that many were “ridiculous” claims submitted for money-making purposes.

“There’s an awful lot of ridiculous stuff going on,” she said. “Don’t we want our children to grow up to be healthy and enjoy being outdoors? It’s about balance and common sense.”

But Rex Phillips, Wales organiser at teachers’ union NASUWT, said: “The success, or otherwise, of compensation claims depends on whether or not negligence can be proved in the context of what constitutes foreseeable risk. It comes down to the difference between what constitutes a genuine accident and what is an accident waiting to happen.  

“Moving to the no-blame culture that Angela Burns appears to be promoting is irreconcilable with her view that this is about balance and common sense.” He added that the system must allow those with legitimate claims to be able to claim the compensation to which they are entitled.

Many other commentators argue that the existence of a compensation culture is based on misconception.

Earlier this year, Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson told members of a student law society: “The courts have certainly not taken an approach that has lowered the standard of care, made it easier to establish negligence, or introduced a test that allows claims to succeed in the absence of fault (except, of course, where the law imposes strict liability). For a compensation culture properly to take hold, there would have to be a major shift in our substantive law.”

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