Principles for Water Safety
The National Water Safety Forum and its specialist Advisory Groups deal with a very wide range of water related activities and risks to people, the environment, and economic activity. Each of these activities and their associated risks in turn involve a number of different persons or organisations with responsibilities or interests (the stakeholders) ranging from participants in water related activity, to responsibilities for managing a facility or waterspace. Devising safety management arrangements which are fair, proportionate, and consistent for all these stakeholders can be complex and achieving a consistency of approach across the range of water-related activities even more so.
Against this background, the Forum decided it needed a set of Principles which would assist in its prime objective of providing a ‘one stop shop’ for water safety advice by setting down the basis on which advice and guidance could be framed. The Principles set out below are based on established risk and safety management principles and practice. In particular they draw on the following:
- HSE Reducing Risks, Protecting People (HSE: 2001)
- Visitor Safety in the Countryside Group – Guiding Principles (VSCG:1998)
- Greater London Authority - Principles for Water Safety (GLA: 2001)
- The Principles of Good (Better) Regulation (Better regulation Task Force)
- The Principles of Managing Risks to the Public (HM Treasury and Cabinet Office 2005)
- Case law
The principles are written primarily for the guidance of the NWSF Co-ordinating Group and the NWSF Advisory Groups in their role as providers of a focal point for water safety advice and guidance. They should also be of assistance to others with interests in water safety issues wanting to know more about the way in which the NWSF reaches its decisions.
Organisations with statutory responsibilities should take these Principles into account when developing their arrangements for risk management within the limits of their statutory responsibilities and powers.Similarly, organisations such as sports governing bodies and special interest groups who represent participants and have influence over many aspects of development of their water-related activity, should take these Principles into account in their work.
These Principles have been approved by the Government Inter-Departmental Group on water safety.
The lack of consistent, comprehensive and reliable nationwide incident data is well recognised and the improvement of this situation is a major area of work for the Forum. Nevertheless, based on evidence collected by Forum members we can say with some confidence that the risks of personal injury across the range of water-related activities fall within the area defined by the HSE as the ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) region. That is, the risks can be considered “tolerable” since they are not so small that they can be accepted as they are with no further effort to reduce them, neither are they so great as to require activities to be banned or severely restricted. The job of all those with responsibilities for water safety, including the participants, is to manage the risk down to a level that can be said to be reasonably practicable taking a balanced view of the benefits, and the level of risk and the disbenefits (including cost) of reducing it.
There is a wide range of benefits arising from water-related activities that should be taken into account when determining the cost effectiveness, fairness, consistency and proportionality of risk control measures. These include:
- Health and fitness agenda.
- Access to countryside and coast.
- Encouraging social inclusion.
- Building life skills. Acquiring the skills necessary for individuals to be aware of risk and be able to deal with it.
- Economic advantages of access to water spaces.
- Access for persons with disabilities
- National sporting and physical activity objectives (Department of Culture, Media and Sports)
