During the recent bad weather at 0800 our college car park was very icy, the estates staff had concentrated on gritting the walkways and footpaths. It was reported to me that a member of staff had slipped in the car park and was being taken to hospital with a suspected broken arm. It was proposed that we put staff in place to advise staff and pupils about the black ice.. Our CEO said that if we did anything we were accepting liability for any accidents and that drivers had to have some responsibility. I thought we had liability because we had been told of an incident. Any thoughts, particularly about accepting responsibility

From the title, I thought this was going to be a thread about a new H&S TV reality show :)

zimmy, agreed HSWA s2(d)&(e) would apply and of course 2(1) if looking at it from a criminal law perspective. However the reality is that only a common law duty of care is likely to be pursued by the IP and the course of redress would be via the OLA.

No thread hijack intended :-)

With legal aid being hard to get now, it may be cheaper to not bother... ! The "claim now pay never" legal "advisers" are loathe to take a case they may not win, and trip claims fall into the "may not win" category.

Also regulation 12 of the Workplace regulations, safe access and egress. Reg 3 of the management regs, risk assessment.

I'd just add that within the remit of both civil and criminal law the duty of care to ensure safe access / egress / safe workplace is that of a reasonable one. There is no absolute duty (unlike for e.g. PUWER). To provide an opinion on a few of the OPs question (working for retailer, we deal with quite alot of these): - Doing "something" is not admitting liability (nor more or less than doing nothing, in any case) - The mere fact that a slip has occurred does not now mean you are liable (the DoC is not absolute, it is that all reasonable steps have been taken) - The courts often judge in favour of the claimant (so it is arguable that the DoC is actually more than that of a "reasonable one", but that's for another day - The benchmark for reasonableness will be organisation specific, we have successfully defended slip claims in the past where we have shown it is not reasonable to grit the entire car park (we had suitably gritted all pedestrian routes). Therefore don't feel the only option is to grit everywhere (as you allude to, this would be probably impossible). - Action under criminal law is very unlikely Things to consider re ice / snow: - Do you have a risk assessment - Do you have a policy and procedure - Do you have documented monitoring - Are relevant staff trained - Do you have the means to cordon off areas that simply cannot be made safe (and is this covered in the above) - Are there any reasonable warnings / alerts you can put in place It is simply a fallacy that organisations cannot protect them self from civil claims when is icy, though I’ll admit some of the court judgements are frustratingly biased towards the claimant.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. The courts always decide (if not settled out of court). Rich

The comment re cordoning off is in relation to pedestrian routes that cannot be made safe (e.g. if a section of pavement for whatever reason is re-freezing / snow accumulation that cannot be cleared and kept cleared in line with your policy). This wasn't meant in relation to the car park. It is invented, but not viable, search heated driveways!

Liability on ice! I thought that was another cheapo Saturday night TV programme to avoid! "Our CEO said that if we did anything we were accepting liability for any accidents ......." A common misconception that has little or no basis in law. "I thought we had liability because we had been told of an incident." Merely being told of/about an accident does not necessarily mean you are going to be found liable. Whatever next?! The snow/ice debate has been 'done to death' on here any number of times. Make reasonable efforts depending on the circumstances and your resources. Have a plan for how you will deal with snow/ice conditions, implement it when it snows etc and record your actions.

Just a quick one, we thought we had done everything resonably expected in 2010 and I have recently spoken to the solicitor who has advised that we would be better settling the cliam made against us and his reson is that although an e-mail was sent out to grit all pedestrian walkways ('once we could get hold of grit') as there was no reply from the person the e-mail was sent to then we could not be sure that it was completed. (it was the year when the whole country could not get grit). I explained that it was strange how one minute we had over a tonne of grit and then after the message was sent it disappeared, but he is argueing that we should have then walked around to check the areas had been gritted.