Personal injury news

Accident claims threaten Scouts

Scout troops across the country are dangerously short of leaders because potential volunteers fear they could be the subject of accident claims, charity bosses have claimed.

Derek Twine, chief executive of the Scout Association, has told MPs that over 30,000 youngsters are unable to join the movement because the threat of being sued is driving away potential troop leaders.

Talking to a Government committee that has been set up to look at the effects of litigation on society, Mr Twine blames money-grabbing parents for the problem, saying, “Their concern is not about themselves falling open to doing something wrong but is about parents taking an accident or an incident as an opportunity to seek compensation for pecuniary gain.”

According to research, one in twenty volunteers from all walks of society have thought about giving up because they fear that a costly accident claim is a very real possibility. With 170,000 adults in the UK helping out with Scout troops, losing one out every twenty is an enormous number that the movement would be unable to cope without.

The Scouts, which are the largest coeducational youth organisation in the world, put a large amount of emphasis on teaching youngsters to make decisions for themselves, using outdoor adventure as a big part of their program. Introducing a climate of anti-risk into Scouting to avoid potential accident claims and personal injury compensation suits would go against the entire ethos of the movement, damaging it enormously.

Dr Justin Davies-Smith from Volunteering England, a body that promotes volunteering, said, “We need to get to grips with this issue now if we are not going to be losing volunteers in quite considerable numbers in the future.”