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Is A Volunteer an Employee for RIDDOR purposes
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Posted By J Knight
Hi Folks,
Question is in thread title really; I know that, for example, people have been prosecuted under s2 for killing volunteers at work, and that the outcome often depends on the precise terms of volunteering, but for RIDDOR purposes, do we report an over-three day to a volunteer? Volunteers are an essential facet of the way we carry out our undertaking, and I know that in 'common-sense' a volunteer is not a 'person at work', but what about in legal terms?
John
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Posted By Alan Hoskins
Would not have thought so John, unless they have a contract of employment.
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Posted By I McDonald
Couple of years ago I did voluntary work in a local Ex-Services club. All staff, including bar staff, were volunteers. We had a manual handling injury to one person whilst working in the cellar (over 3-day LTA). When I asked the HSE Help desk the question "Reportable" was the response.
Ian
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Posted By andrew morris
Hi,
without knowing a few more details it is difficult to say, but volunteers are normally classed as employees in terms of HaSWA. They are part of your workforce and are normally doing a job that an employee is expected to do. I would reccomend (without knowing more) that you report it.
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Posted By J Knight
Thanks folks, reportable is what I had thought, but sometimes I need reassuring that its not me that's going mad....
John
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Posted By Michael Hayward
A volunteer is a "member of the public who may be affected by your undertaking" therefor they are a section 3 HASAWA responsibility.
As far as RIDDOR is concerned an accident to a sect 3 person is reportable if "they are taken directly from the scene of the accident, by whatever means to a hospital, and receive treatment"
Cheers
Mick
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Posted By J Knight
Hi Mick,
That may not be true; as I say in my initial post here, employers have been prosecuted under s2 for injuries and deaths caused to volunteers. In particular, a case against the Prince's Trust in the 1990s was a bit of a landmark here, where they were successfully prosecuted under s2 for causing the deaths of two of their volunteers. What the question hinges on is whether or not a person is actually a volunteer or an employee for H&S purposes, and this depends on a range of factors; in particular in the Prince's Trust case the terms under which people were volunteering made them employees for H&S purposes, even though they had no contract of employment and were not employees for HR purposes. The determination of their status is certainly not wholly defined by the terms the employer 'employs' them on. Hence my post,
John
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Posted By Richie
Without wishing to enter into copyright issues, the HSE's take on this, which can be found within "Charity and Voluntary Workers - A Guide to Health and Safety at Work" is:
The requirement to report RIDDOR accidents involving volunteers remains unclear.
The HSE's does offer some "Good practice" guidance, recommending the reporting of RIDDOR accidents to volunteers as if they were 'employees', whilst stating within the narrative that this is the case.
Richie
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Posted By Mark Daniels
I'd like to put forward a different view - that volunteers are not "at work" by definition, they are not classed as employees under HSW Act, and for purposes of RIDDOR reporting, accidents to volunteers should be reported in the same way as to members of the public. In my view, there is no requirement to report 3-day off work accidents to volunteers.
My view is based on two main documented statements - firstly, HSE's Enforcement Guide has a clear statement that volunteers are not employees. (You can find this by going on HSE's web site and searching under volunteers). Secondly, HSE's booklet HSG192 "Charity and voluntary workers" produced in collaboration with the Charities Safety Group states that "Section 3 of HSW Act places a duty on employers ... to conduct their undertakings in a way that ensures ... that people other than their employees (e.g. voluntary workers, clients, customers and members of the public) are not exposed to risks to their health or safety."
My organisation (a charity with 30,000 volunteers) has worked on this basis for many years. We also have a LAPS agreement with HSE and a local authority, and they have never questioned our interpretation.
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Posted By J Knight
Mark,
Notwithstanding that, and taking on board HSE's printed views, treating volunteers as members of the public in all cases risks opening your organisation to prosecution, as happened to the Prince's Trust.
We also have thousands of volunteers, and we are careful to treat them as employees for some purposes but not for others. Our in-house legal people have done extensive work on this, and there really isn't a clear cut divide between volunteers and employees; a person's status is one of the things which would be decided by a court in the event of a prosecution.
My previous employer is one of the UKs top ten charities, and they also are very careful about the way that H&S is rolled out to volunteers. A contract of employment is one of the factors which would be taken into account in deciding somebody's status. Another relevant factor is to the scope and nature of your undertaking, and whether volunteers are necessary for your undertaking to succeed; also to be taken into account are questions about who determines how volunteers spend their time? If your volunteers go out raising funds as and when they wish, or if they organise their time between themselves, then there really isn't a problem. Many of our volunteers (including the IP whose injury started this thread) have to work for us at certain times, and are honour bound to come in at regular times to perform specific functions, this brings them closer to the status of employees.
The problem with much of HSE's guidance on volunteers is that it doesn't really examine the real complexity of what 'volunteer' can mean. If it was indeed the last word on this question then the prosecutions under s2 involving volunteers (and there have been more than one, I believe, though they pre-date the HSE prosecutions database) are perverse. We also have a LAPS in train at the moment, and I must say that our cautious approach has been noted and accepted by our prospective partner,
John
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Posted By Mark Daniels
John,
Certainly this is a complex legal area, also in our case subject to previous extensive legal discussion.
Can I clarify - I was only suggesting treating volunteers as members of the public for the purposes of RIDDOR. For H&S in general, our policy is to provide the same precautions in practice for volunteers as we would for our employees.
I think it's likely that if a prosecution were being considered, for example following a serious accident to a volunteer, HSE would be inclined to use Section 3, as this is what their Enforcement Guide suggests. And looking back at some papers I had about the Princes' Trust case, an article from Jan 1999 in the SHP said that the Prince's Trust was prosecuted under Section 3 (although two other organisations, Adult Community Training (Dundee) Ltd, and Angus College were prosecuted under Section 2).
Mark
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Posted By Crim
Hi there everyone,
Just seen this one and suggest that a volunteer - if at work - is an employee and RIDDOR applies. You don't have to be on the payroll to be an employee!
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