Councils face compensation bills for “unnecessarily” banning events on health and safety grounds

Organisations “wrongly” banned from holding events on health and safety grounds by local authorities will be given a right to appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman for compensation under new plans unveiled by the Conservative Party at the weekend.

The full review of Health and Safety, conducted on behalf of the government by Conservative peer Lord Young of Graffham, will be published later this month, but amongst the recommendations already announced are a significant reduction on the amount of 'red tape' required by schools when planning school trips and a new exemption from liability for people acting as “Good Samaritans” or in emergency situations.

The measures also include placing restrictions on the activities of claimant personal injury, by limiting advertising opportunities and “limiting speculative claims”  against public authorities, in part by outlawing the payment of bonuses by claims management companies to claimants when their claims are accepted by solicitors.

Lord Young, who is due to outline his proposals in a speech to the Conservative Party conference this week, said that he thought that the “compensation culture” was out of control.

He said: “We must move the balance back. It's about changing the mindset. Our message is: just use common sense. Schools are not allowing pupils to go on days out because they are scared they will be liable if an accident happens. That's nonsense, and that's not going to continue, unless a teacher is really negligent. In the ordinary course of events, accidents happen."

In a separate announcement ahead of the party conference, the education secretary Michael Gove said that the government intended to scrap "no touch" rules that prevent teachers from restraining or comforting children and given the right to anonymity when faced by allegations from pupils, as part of a review of school discipline rules.

He said: "At the moment if you want to become au fait with what this department thinks on how to keep order in class you have to read the equivalent of War and Peace. There are about 500 pages of guidance on discipline and another 500 pages on bullying. We will clarify and shrink that."