Gove to cut school trip red tape

Employment Law & HR update - 4/7/2011

New guidelines are to be published by the government which aim to allow more children to enjoy school trips.

The Department for Education's 150 pages of guidelines have been slashed to eight, with local authorities and schools being told to shelve 'unnecessary paperwork.'

The relaxed guidelines will ensure a 'more common sense approach to health and safety,' education secretary Michael Gove told the BBC.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it was hopeful that the new guidelines would ensure that teachers were trusted for their common sense and that parents would realise their children should learn how to manage risk.

Judith Hackitt, HSE chairman, said to the BBC, “It is time to out those who hide behind red tape and procedures and often blame us and health and safety as the reason why they can't do these things.”

Despite just two cases being brought against schools for health and safety breaches on a school trip in the last five years, many schools too often used fear of prosecution as an excuse not to organise them.

However, teaching unions had concerns over the new guidelines. The National Union of Teachers' Amanda Brown said, “What we wouldn't want to do is to see a reduction of guidance which could lead to a lot more accidents.

"What we want is advice which is very clear and straightforward but long enough to cover enough of the detail so that people do feel secure,” she added.