Kitchen Garden Forum

There is a bit of a preamble here, if you have the time to read it.

I am the allotment secretary for our local horticultural society and we self-manage seven allotment sites on behalf of the local council. We recently joined the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, mainly to get public liability insurance cover for our sites. In the latest issue of their magazine is an article on Children on Allotment Sites and suggests that if you have children on your site that you should do a risk assessement. (No comments, please, on the dreaded heath and safety jobsworths.) One of our Site Reps regularly has groups of children from the local primary school, brownies etc visiting his site and wondered if he should do a risk assessement. I followed the link given in the NSALG article (www.farmgarden.org.uk/ari/documents/healthand safety/H&Sallabout.pdf) but all it did was present me with a series of links to other websites, most of which wanted to charge me £25 for a risk assessement form.

Has anyone ever done a risk assessement on their site? What did you do? Did you make up your own form? Can you help me?

Hello Binky
I'm afraid that I have no specific help to give you , merely a few suggestions. Is there an organisation in your area that is available to help community and voluntary groups? There probably is. These are a really valuable source of all this sort of information from running AGM's to drawing up all these types of policies, like child protection or health and safety, that you need these days. Our local one has a large number of specimen policy documents and procedures that you can easily adapt to your own situation (no point in re-inventing the wheel!). Have you tried your local authority? They are almost certain to have an officer whose job it is to support local voluntary groups.

I would strongly recommend to you that as children are involved in your situation you write a child protection policy - this will also have to contain contact details of a named person whose is willing to deal with any child concerns. In fact it should refer not only to children but to all vulnerable persons on your sites. Even though you may not be legally required to have one it would prudent to get one sorted out. As you are not directly involved with children I don't think that you'll need to do any criminal record checks.

Remember that these assessments and policy documents should be reviewed regularly eg at your AGM or more frequently if required. I would suggest that they contain a statement outlining how and when the reviews will be done. Everyone in your organisation should be aware of them - don't just write them and file them away and forget.

I know it all sounds very onerous and time consuming but if things go wrong these documents will be called for and examined very carefully.

John

Personally I wouldn't have thought you need to anything like this. The school should do it's own risk assessment as they do for all excursions, but it might be worth checking that they have. The onus is really on them, as they are responsible for the children. I presume a member of staff is present at all time. Child protection should not be an issue either, as this is also covered by the school's policy. I'm sure you, or your fellow plotholders, will not be left alone with the children, as again there will be a member of staff present. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the regulations for Brownies though.

I wonder if the advice is really concerning children visiting who are relatives/friends of plotholders though?

As I am the H&S champion for my services (don't mock - my OH finds this a total mystery) can I suggest you got to the national site and follow their recommendations. All the policies and assessment guidance you need is there. If it isn't, come back to me and I'll ask a man who knows all there is to know on the subject. We only have his expertise for a few more weeks, so do let me know asap.

Sarah is right in saying the school has to do it's own H&S assessment as a visitor but you have to do yours too as the site recipient.

As for child protection issues - or adult protection - it depends on the role of your allotmenteers with the children/vulnerable adults. Again - I'm happy to help you with these if you wish.

Don't be distracted by the foolishness surrounding H&S stories, you assess risks every day of your life.

There are three areas to consider:

1. The children.
Are they able to follow guidelines?
Will there be clear supervision?
2. Access.
What are paths like?
Are there facilities for them?
3. Activities.
Conditions, clothing, cleaning up afterwards.
Use of tools, distractions.

And as already been said, the school are obliged to identify the same risks.

In a world of common sense, there are very few considerations. However, we live in the land of litigious challenges and are required to be prepared to meet these.