BCA statement on peer to peer training
- Thread starter JoshW
- Start date
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
It is not a National Governing Body, some would argue, because there is nothing to govern - governing bodies in sports tend to set the rules and regulations for a sport, which obviously doesn't apply to caving.
cap n chris
Well-known member
I think it's QMC? Am I confusing things? [Mods: might the posts about BCA being an NGB get separated out into a new thread so this current one doesn't get sidetracked?].
cap n chris
Well-known member
I also suspect that it's not possible to Govern anything if there are no powers to do so, such as sanctions, dismissal, veto, etc.. Therefore I conclude that there is no actual National Governing Body for British Caving. If so, this thread and the statement published/issued by BCA has no authority. Am I wrong?
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thehungrytroglobite
Well-known member
why is everything else in this thread controversial but not this statement 😭😭 what a silly thing to do (suggesting students need qualifications), but I wouldn't expect any better of the BCA. Thank you Josh for your hard work in trying to rectify the mess, and also for the transparency & clear communication. If only everyone else in the BCA could do the same.
thehungrytroglobite
Well-known member
Poor Tony 😢 what did he do to you? He's sold me some very lovely oversuits over the years
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
Also not a lawyer... so everything that follows is 'as far as I am aware'.
Duty of care is not AFAIK related to if you are being paid or not (_except_ that the BCA insurance for professional indemnity insurance only applies if you are _not_ being paid).
Whether you are qualified/competent doesn't affect the responsibilities and duty of care you adopt. If I took people caving for money, adopt a duty of care as a leader, and am completely incompetent (having done one 'New To Caving' session or whatever), and consequently people suffered harm due to my negligence, people would rightly be able to sue me because I had a duty of care and I was negligent in that duty. The fact that I don't _have_ the competence doesn't matter - I would be expected not to adopt that duty of care unless I _had_ the competence expected. I don't need qualifications or anything, and having the qualifications wouldn't protect me.
If I was _not_ being paid, as far as I understand I would still be in exactly the same position (except that the BCA professional indemnity cover would kick in to protect me).
I regularly take less experienced people caving and act as a leader. Thus I have both a _moral_ duty of care and, I believe, a _legal_ one. I generally like to believe these two tend to be the same.
I only have two issues with the statement: 'Within recreational caving clubs have a responsibility to check that leaders of novices on their trips are suitably competent, as per the above definition'
1) there should be a comma after 'recreational caving'?
2) 'as per the above definition' isn't necessarily correct because there is nothing magical about the HSE's definition of competence. I presume competence would be determined on a case-by-case basis by a court. However it is a _good_ definition of competence, so adding an 'e.g.' before 'as per the above' would satisfy me.
I think you need to read that statement such that 'on their trips' means 'on the _club's official_ trips' not just trips of members in general. Everything will of course be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine if any duty of care is owed.
Josh
Well done for attempting to clarify a really difficult situation.
Recently Mark Zuckerberg decided I should see the following post on FB. (See below). This appears to be student caving asking for qualifications in First Aid. I assume this is a different legal position than asking for “Qualified leaders” for caving?
Why would students need you to be qualified for first aid but not in “leading” caving ?
Absolute minefield, genuinely good luck 👍.
ian.p
Active member
Fjell:
Competency is relative so if you have some fallow years in a caving club it might well be the case that those trying to restart the caving club have very little competence. For this reason they might chose to take there companions on some very easy trips that you dont need very much competence for- Goat church cavern, Runscar and thistle for example rather than bigger objectives. They might also seek help from other clubs with more experience which happens a lot now thanks to the network that CHECC provides.
If everyone is going caving as a group of equally (in)competent mates there isn't a problem because everyone is being equally daft so a group of uni cavers discovering how to get lost together don't have a problem it only starts to be a problem if one of them claims to have a better idea of what they are doing than the rest and is going to "lead" (take responsibility for the safety of) the group. Anyone who says follow me I will look after you has a responsibility not to be a liability. If 18 year olds take a bit of telling about that then that's our job as a community to look out for them when we get the opportunity but i don't see any of the above as incompatible with statement put out hear.
Competency is relative so if you have some fallow years in a caving club it might well be the case that those trying to restart the caving club have very little competence. For this reason they might chose to take there companions on some very easy trips that you dont need very much competence for- Goat church cavern, Runscar and thistle for example rather than bigger objectives. They might also seek help from other clubs with more experience which happens a lot now thanks to the network that CHECC provides.
If everyone is going caving as a group of equally (in)competent mates there isn't a problem because everyone is being equally daft so a group of uni cavers discovering how to get lost together don't have a problem it only starts to be a problem if one of them claims to have a better idea of what they are doing than the rest and is going to "lead" (take responsibility for the safety of) the group. Anyone who says follow me I will look after you has a responsibility not to be a liability. If 18 year olds take a bit of telling about that then that's our job as a community to look out for them when we get the opportunity but i don't see any of the above as incompatible with statement put out hear.
Now I am being pedantic, but coming back to the HSE thing. It’s not that the HSE says you can do without qualifications; it’s much worse than that, they mean that they can be useful but not sufficient in the vast majority of situations. You have to demonstrate safety through through analysis, goal setting, management systems and QA. This regime was adopted more formally after the Piper Alpha inquiry. This is different to many other countries. Don’t go there, we are not at work. If you really applied HSE principles, cavers are toast and would fail any audit. Especially the teeny-boppers, not a chance. To push the risk towards ALARP, the thing to do would be (for instance) to hire a CIC instructor to lead every trip as a minimum plus extensive training beforehand. It’s unreasonable in a non-commercial leisure activity.
The reality is it hasn’t happened yet. Which is the good bit.
The reality is it hasn’t happened yet. Which is the good bit.
georgenorth
Active member
I wouldn’t be so sure about this. Just because it isn’t at work, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be held responsible for being negligent.
This case springs to mind:
UKC Forums - Climbing wall belay partner sued
www.ukclimbing.com
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
Other than using an example of a definition of competence from HSE, nothing in the document has anything to do with the HSE.
Babyhagrid
Well-known member
This asking for people with first aid quals is not related to caving . Just so CHECC has a list of people to signpost injured student drinkers to at one of their events.
kay
Well-known member
JoshW says “The safest way to get good at caving is to go caving!”, and many competent cavers have done precisely that, learned by experience on a large number of trips. The BCA statement says there are several methods for the recreational caver to develop skills, but this sort of “on the job” learning is not one of them. Bit puzzled by that.
Incidentally, what is “peer to peer caving” (line 2)?
Incidentally, what is “peer to peer caving” (line 2)?
It depends how big a risk you are managing. All over my ass like bees on honey. I have spent many moons discussing country level policy with them and their equivalents in other countries, and indeed succeeded in getting what I wanted on several occasions. They can be very very persistant. The Norwegian HSE are even tougher, they don’t give a toss about the economic impact of anything.
As soon as you start wittering about assessing things to be safe and people to be competent you are opening yourself up. Especially if in reality you do no such thing that a lawyer couldn’t unpick. I would suggest not saying anything beyond giving out a list of optional training opportunities, much like CNCC does.
georgenorth
Active member
Off topic, but HSE absolutely do say you need specific qualifications for certain tasks at work: using chainsaws being one!
Completely understand it is “different”, just the “oddity” in asking for qualifications in one area and absolutely “shunning” qualifications in another. Keeping things equal would mean asking for anyone “competent” in first aid to volunteer.
Minefield as mentioned. Good luck to all.
JoshW
Well-known member
My reading of that is that a certificate of competence will suffice. In the outdoor industry this sounds like a statement of competency which many centres will use to sign off employees to run activities without qualifications. Chainsaw rules not part of my knowledge so potentially a certificate of competence is a specific thing
cap n chris
Well-known member
I think it's rather amazing, all round, that BCA has managed to get insurance cover for an unknown risk level undertaken by a body of people who may or may not have any pedigree of proven competence. I can easily imagine why an insurer might require some kind of yardstick competencies so it can better underwrite things but I'm not an insurance professional so this is pure guesswork.
