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Any person in charge of children, young people or vulnerable
individuals involved in a sports club or activity has a duty
of care and should take all reasonable care for their safety.
The duty when involved in a sports club is reasonably straightforward:
it is comparable to the duty of a teacher in charge of a class
of children of the same age.
There have been many cases concerning liability for accidents
suffered by school pupils while at school that can be usefully
applied to the sports setting. Out of these cases has evolved
a general principle, which identifies the expected standard
of care for teachers as that of a reasonably prudent parent,
taking into account the fact that a teacher will have responsibility
for a whole class of children.
This means that teachers are not required to achieve perfection
with regard to their supervision of children, but that if
they fall below the standards of a reasonably prudent parent
and injury is suffered as a result, the teacher may be held
to be negligent. Those responsible for the management or supervision
of children and young people in a club setting should consider
what steps they may need to take in order to demonstrate the
reasonable standard of care. Examples of this could include:
- Keeping up to date registers of attendance
- Keeping up to date records of contact details
- Maintaining appropriate supervision ratios
- Maintaining up to date information on specific medical
conditions – allergies, asthma, epilepsy
- Ensuring that first aid provision is available at the
venue
- Ensuring those responsible for supervising the children,
young people and vulnerable individuals have been subject
to appropriate recruitment and selection processes
The Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999 require
that employers must make risk assessments and specify controls
to reduce the risks of their activities.
Those responsible for sports activities should consider themselves
in a similar position to an employer and carry out a risk
assessment for their activities. When carrying out risk assessments,
it is vital to attend to the requirements relating to the
duty of care and the other aspects of health and safety. Some
sports have developed risk assessment templates and it is
important, if these have been developed, to complete these.
It is not necessary to complete an assessment on each individual
activity or session if this occurs on a regular basis. An
annual or seasonal assessment would be sufficient. If, however,
potentially hazardous equipment is used as part of the activity
then this equipment must be checked before the start of each
and every session.
The Moral Duty of Care is more correctly
a responsibility for safety and welfare. Members of staff
have a responsibility for those children and young people,
and other staff, who are under their control.
To determine if a breach of the duty of care has occurred
the ordinary civil law of negligence would be applied. The
question is whether the accused in acting, or omitting to
act, has failed to reach the standard of a reasonable person.
In specialist sports activities the qualified instructor has
a duty of care for all those taking part irrespective of their
age or position. The key point here is that the individual
administering the activity, whatever their status, should
be appropriately trained and authorised.
In addition to this those in charge of children have an
additional charge and that is to act “in loco parentis”.
This term is best explained as requiring the adult to act
as “a reasonable parent”. You will note that this
is not necessarily the actual parent and what the child’s
parent may permit the sport may not. So that whilst a parent
may say that their child can stay out until midnight, a reasonable
parent might not.
Within sports organisation the duty of care would start
by ensuring the activity is authorised by the sport and the
relevant instructors are qualified for the task but then would
go on to ensure that it is managed in a safe manner throughout.
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