Morning,

A friend of mine has asked me for advice surrounding the main differences between employees and volunteers as far as health and safey law goes.

He works for a charity that employes a few hundred individuals but also regularly has up to 2000 volunteers who help by way of maintaining the environment (litter picking, vegetation and general maintenance, running events and carrying out surveys etc).

Recently there was an incident where a volunteer suffered an injury as a result of a head-volunteers negligence. The head-volunteer (group leader) who caused the injury received training directly from the charity (my friend delivered the training) as how to ensure that all the activities carried out by other volunteers are done so in safe and controlled manner, i.e. risk assessment, first aid provision, lone working, safeguarding, PPE and so on. What would be the charity's legal stand point and would my friend have a case to answer or would this be purely a civil law matter between the two volunteers?

As qouted from HSE website, "Under the common law, voluntary organisations and individual volunteers have a duty of care to each other and others who may be affected by their activities", Where does the charity's duty of care start and finish?

Finally, I have read that the HSE is being lobbied in order to ammend the HSW Act to change the term "employee" to "worker" which would automatically mean they would receive the same level of protection. Has anyone got any thoughts on this moving forward?

Thanks in advance

The charity cannot provide direct training to all 2000 volunteers, so they train individual group co-ordinators or senior volunteers whose role it is provide adequate training to the other volunteers in their group on ssow, use of PPE, risk assessments. Before a volunteering activity takes place, either a few days before or on the day the senior volunteer will explain how the activity should be carried out. In this instance the direction/training (cutting back hedges) was given on the morning of the activity to a group of about 8 other volunteers. The volunteer who suffered the injury fell over after stepping back and collided with a wheel barrow and suffered severe brusing to shoulder, hip, leg, has been off their own work for 5 days and is undergoing physiotherapy for shoulder. The volunteer who suffered the injury is saying that they weren't provided with a safe working environment and that better controls to prevent this should have been in place. They are potentially looking to pursue a claim.

My friend is concerned that as you say under section 3 of the HSW he did not provide specific and sufficient training to the senior volunteer who in turn did not provide sufficient training to the other volunteer.

Clane

Speaking in the cold light of day unless the volunteer suffered a permanent disability as a result of this incident, I can’t see the HSE coming along to investigate let alone prosecute anybody.  As to a civil claim , well anybody can go out and try to find a lawyer who is willing to take up the case and the charity’s insurers will most likely negotiate a payoff rather than go to court.

Personally I cannot see how someone stepping backwards and colliding with a wheelbarrow can be laid at the feet of negligent supervision. The law does not expect zero risk of harm, just as safe as reasonably practicable.  Just what form of training or supervision were they expecting?

“When reversing back from a hedge, please remember to make a beeping noise to alert any barrow operators behind you”.

Leave it to the insurers. They might agree to pay up, they might decide to defend. But tell your friend not to worry this does not look like a big deal –worse things happen at sea(or on building sites, or waste recycling plants, in confined spaces…).