ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the licensing regime under the 1995 Act does not cover the volunteer organizations who provide the bulk of outdoor activities for those under 18. Iain Peter, the chief executive of the Plas y Brenin Mountain Centre in North Wales has the view that ‘the stupid thing is that there has hardly been a death in a pursuit centre since the legislation. The danger areas are schools, Scouting and voluntary organizations. But the government refuses to extend the legislation to cover those hazard areas’.1 The Scout Association is the largest youth organization in the world, with over 25 million members in 216 countries. Along with Girlguiding UK, the Boys’ Brigade, the Army Cadet Force Association, the Sea Cadet Association and similar uniformed organizations, these volunteer bodies run a huge range of outdoor and camping activities which provide the main opportunities for adventurous activities for young people in the UK. They rely in very large part on adult volunteer effort. It has been suggested for some time that the level of community volunteering has been in decline, and the assertion of David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, is that ‘the fear of litigation is leading to teachers declining to take children on trips, doctors practising “defensive medicine” to avoid being sued and a downturn in the number of people working as volunteers’. Mr Davis is therefore considering ‘ways of preventing frivolous claims’ in an effort at ‘cutting the cancer of litigation’ out of the voluntary sector.2 Actually the numbers in voluntary organizations in the UK has been declining over several decades, along with individuals taking a role in political parties, civic and amenity groups, tenants associations, churches and religious organizations, trade unions, mutual aid associations and friendly societies, and charities generally. A report in 1996 underlined ‘the alarming extent to which our neighbourhood life and civil society have disintegrated’.3 So although ‘fear of litigation’ may indeed be a factor in the declining numbers of volunteers, it is clearly not the only one. It is actually quite difficult to obtain a complete breakdown of numbers, as the voluntary sector is so disparate, and many adventurous activities are organized on an ad hoc basis. The National Council for Voluntary Youth Services has been coordinating such activity since 1936 and lists over 160 national voluntary organizations working with young people. These vary considerably in size, activities and ethos; for example, the Woodcraft Folk have a ‘co-operative outlook encouraging young people to learn the value of co-operation through
1 ‘Peak season brings school trip fears’, BBC News (5 July, 2002).
