Formulating any sort of meaningful risk assessment for the circumstance you provide would be a difficult if not essentially meaningless exercise. Perhaps the parallel(?) of all too frequent tragedies associated with Farms and children (HSE Agriculture pages) would serve to illustrate to the Director that this isn't a good idea at all. I'm not convinced you'd pique the interest of Social Services, by HSE would be a different matter!

Too true. The unecessary torment and suffering that may arise if a FLT driver was to kill one of these children doesn't bear thinking about

If this was more than 7 days ago, the law has probably already been broken ! All employment of children of school age is subject to council regulation, where any work done for a trade or occupation carried out for profit or in any commercial enterprise, for example working in a shop. This includes work done in a parent’s business and work for which the child is not paid. Within one week of employing a child, an employer must send the council a completed application form setting out the work the child will do. Unlicensed children may not be recognised as employees for insurance purposes and the employer could also face prosecution. I like those posting above was not aware of this until last weekend when I accidentally found the information on my councils website when checking bin collection days over the Easter holidays www.torfaen.gov.uk/en/Ne...-employing-children.aspx If you raise this with your directors you might get the response you want.

Good advice from jfw. Children under the age of thirteen are not allowed to work. This means not only that they are not allowed to be in paid employment but that they are not allowed to undertake what might normally be considered work activities on an unpaid basis. Children over the age of thirteen are legally permitted to work but there are still strict rules about how and where they may do so. Local councils set out the local standards and issue permits to allow children to work. Controls include working hours that are differenrt from the WTD. These restrictions apply until your child reaches the MSLA, or minimum school leaving age - the end of the school year in which they turn sixteen. In many years of arranging planned work experience placements for under 16's we have never allowed children to be in such areas as you outline. Maybe a short term supervised visit to see how things are done but nothing more. A Director should respect such controls. I wonder whether he would be happy to have other children in that environment and if not why not. That might highlight the issue that simply because he might 'trust' his kids that is not adequate control to protect them. Equally important re risks to the business is his duty to protect others such as his employees who might be harmed by the errors, acts or omissions of his children. Children that he has allowed to 'work' in his business. Good luck p48