Posted By Simon Ayee The army is visiting my sons school later this week as part of the schools "Activity Week" and he presented me with a consent form to be signed. The form was from the MOD/army and not the school and described the various activities, health and safety and liabilities etc. I am all for parents being required to consent to activities such as completing assault courses etc where ther may be additional risks and want my son to take part in as wide a variety of challenging activities as he wishes to. I was surprised to see that the MOD/army require the signature and contact details of an independant witness (not a family member) to the parent's/guardian's signature. This appears to be a little over the top to me. The contact address given refered to a health & safety / liabilities unit. The form also mentioned that the MOD insures itself so I cannot even blame an overcautious insurance company for this silliness.

Posted By Jon Bradburn The Forces lost crown immunity many years ago -memory fails me but at least 10. They are required as any other organisation to manage health and safety and have the same duty of care as anyone else - this was evident form the Deepcut report where they were deemed to be in breach of that duty. Most regulations have an exemption clause whereby the secretary of state for defence can 'opt out' but this is only likley in extreme cases for example whn deployed on opertations. Are they being over zealous - quite probably but this only goes to prove they are not immumne to the compensation culture and fear of litigation. Other than that theres doesn't seem to be much diffrence between this consent and that required by the school for say and adventure training outing. Regrds Jon

Posted By Vincent Hearn Brett, I believe you may be incorrect in that the army cadets are run by the army, they are not - it is more like a youth organisation with a hierarchical structure not unlike the army!! Notwithstanding, the MOD as quite rightly stated does not have Crown Immunity (it cannot however be prosecuted) but does require to comply with the MHSWR '99 ie Young Persons Regulations (Reg 19 if I recall) whereby the parent/guardian of a young person should be issued a copy of risk assessment for the young person's activity.