Hi AlHo, Yes there is definately a duty of care here, normally the charity involved would identify a competent external organisation to organise any fundraising activity that involved significant risk and then review their (the competent organisers) competency qualification and risk assessments for the said activity re suitability and sufficiency, hope this helps. Pete,

What relevance does the deaths of the 2 soldiers have to this question. They were not at a charity event/fundraising etc - they were 'at work'. All be it a very specialised form of training etc.

I have always considered that the DOC is very broad and wide ranging; in effect that we all owe a duty to all others (who may be affected by our actions/inactions) subject to the test of foreseeability (remember the pregnant fishwife?!). So in that respect, I would suggest that a DOC is likely to be owed. To what extent is the duty owed or how far the person has to go to exercise that duty is another matter, and this is as always dependant on the circumstances. There isn’t really enough information provided to be enable (me) to make any particularly helpful suggestions other than to look at the circumstances and decide how the risk might best be managed. Overall I would say that the ‘test’ is one of ‘control’ (what, where, when, who). If the charity have ‘control’ then they have the bulk of the responsibility, but if ‘control’ rests elsewhere, e.g. a self-employed fund raiser, then I suggest that the bulk of the responsibility would rest with them.

Should have mentioned that you may be getting your civil law and criminal law muddled. Risk assessment is mandated by legislation (MHSWR - Reg3) and nothing to do with a Duty of Care. I would also like to add that charities are sometimes not employers, volunteers are not employees, so most legislation does not apply to charitable work. But...there is always a but, I would advise that charities treat volunteers as employees, partly because of the nebulous distinction in law. In that way charities will insulate themselves from both civil and criminal law, as well as adopting the moral highground. See links below for further advice. http://www.hse.gov.uk/event-safety/volunteers.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/charities.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/voluntary/