Posted By Andy Wignall
Hi everyone i was wondering if you can give me some advice.

My Local council have a policy in swimming pools called the "under 8's" policy. It basically states that a child under 8 can not swim alone and must be accompanied by an adult ( someone over 16 ). The details are roughly one parent can have two 5-7 year olds, but 4 and below it has to be a one on one supervision with a parent.

We have had this system in place for 2 years, but we have had to turn away a lot of customers due to this policy. Due to this the Council is going to review it by putting a panel together ( which i happen to be on ). The under 8s policy comes from guidance from ISRM and the management of Swimming Pool regulations.

Basically i was wondering if anyone knows of any leisure centres that have a slightly different policy in place or just any advice i can give to the committee next Tuesday.

Thanks :D

Posted By Andy Wignall
Exactly they haven't changed.

But because of the amount of public that they have had to knock back due to inadequate numbers, they have shown a concern that they are losing numbers coming into a centre. If two adults and three young children were to come swimming, there is a likelihood that they wouldn't be able to, due to our policy.

I'm for not changing it, but when it comes to management, that's a different story.

Does anyone else have any information that they can give to me, or any examples from other council's?

Again Thanks?

Posted By Bob Youel

Can I just state that there has been some excellent advice given here

I feel that this is another example of 'penny pinching' and a 'do as I say not as I do' situation

Posted By Konstanty Budkiewicz
Andy,

You appear to be locked into a particularly conservative policy that directly impacts on your profitability. This response is based upon the content of link: http://www.isrm.co.uk/te...nt-Child-Admissions.pdf.

That link at sub-paras E onwards discusses pertinent risk assessment issues. The tone of the guidance is that it is within your gift to consider the following changes: introducing individual height-related easements for junior customers (this appears to reduce the escort requirements to a degree); the introduction of formal swimming competency certification (passports) as a key (control) measure, rather than specific age criteria, and the use of surge lifeguard staff levels for high risk sessions.

The link emphasises that local knowledge and interpretation of near miss and incident reports also "weight" the assessment process. In this context, I suggest that your apparent policy review interval of 2 years is too infrequent and is not adequately responsive to your business needs. A plan-do-review-revise cycle of 1 year would seem more appropriate. This level of frequency would meet both your need to have a robust and relevant risk assessment, and management's need for continuous improvement in a revenue critical area.

Hope the above helps in your response to management.

Kon
CMOSH (47 years in engineering and still a poor swimmer)

Posted By Peter Gamble
Very nicely put Kon, excellent analysis.

As to the next respondent ( sorry missed the name ...) as the Training and Education Officer for ISRM in Wales, I am disappointed to learn that they have not responded to queries concerning the published policies, if you would like me to take this matter forward via our Executive please contact me off forum pgamble@barry.ac.uk

Peter