The Adventure Activity Licensing Service
When Andy, the Wales Outdoors owner set up the business in 1995 it was as a Mountain Bike Hire and guiding point, the first of its kind in the Brecon Beacons National Park. It soon became apparent that clients wanted to book multiple activities and that Andy, already a mountain leader, ought to be offering a wider portfolio of outdoor adventures.
Adventure Activity Licensing had recently been introduced following the debate about the future of outdoor education following the Lyme Bay Tragedy. Andy got in touch with the licensing inspector and duly gained, following inspection, his license.
The license covers operational procedures and risk assessments for the delivery of some adventure activities to those under 18 years who are not accompanied by someone with parental responsibility. There is no inspection of activity providers who deal solely with activities that fall outside the scope of the license or work with a parent accompanied child or who work with the over 18's.
Wales Outdoors were licensed from 1995 through to 2012 when Andy decided to follow his ethics and to have nothing more to do with the licensing process.
There are many problems with adventure activity licensing, first and foremost it being a duplication of work. It's an inspection of an activity provider’s inspector or technical advisor’s work. A technical advisor will invariably work for several businesses' providing an overview and tidying up of individual operators’ routines. Wales Outdoors asks the question 'does this advice and inspection need to be duplicated by a government official?' We would much rather see the role of technical advisor become a legal requirement. That's it. Job done.
Wales Outdoors also see the licensing process as a drive to the bottom. The inspector will look for a minimum standard of the safe provision before granting a license. And this is what some providers aim to pass. There is no requirement to aim for best practices, just this minimum standard. We believe that this has damaged the industry and has led to many providers working to a less than satisfactory standard but yet still holding a license and so have the ability to use this to promote their business.
From the get-go Wales Outdoors were advised to provide footwear for clients when gorge walking, old trainers being unsuitable. Wales Outdoors owner Andy Lamb went out and bought wellington boots which are demonstrably the best footwear for the kinds of gorges experienced in South Wales and the Brecon Beacons. However, Andy noticed that many licensed providers were gorge walking with adults and young people alike with the clients wearing their own footwear much of which was unsuitable for the activity such as pumps, slip-on, old trainers with soles falling or fallen off and even crocs! Andy then engaged with the licensing authority about this, for well over ten years, finally going to his Welsh Assembly Member for assistance. The licensing authority’s stance was that they could not prescribe footwear for the activity despite them being able to do so for activities such as caving and mountain walking.
It was the issue of footwear that finally, and after much effort, led to Andy deciding that the licensing authority’s adventure activity license was a box-ticking exercise by a government department with little to no teeth and certainly no desire to drive up the standards of adventure activity delivery in the UK. The final straw came with a bold and foolish statement made by the head of licensing, Marcus Bailey, that boots do not offer protection to the ankle. Well, let’s go gorge walking in flip-flops then shall we? Apparently, that would be fine with the licensing authority.
Andy was told by the inspection officer that he was a thorn in the side of the licensing authority and Wales Outdoors did experience negative impacts as a direct result of complaining to the authority about other providers’ provisions. Andy's motivation wasn't in gaining market advantage, certainly rocking the boat never achieves that. Andy wanted to see as a minimum a level playing field and providers working to their risk assessments which gained them their license.
Here is a copy of a long-ish correspondence with AALS regarding the shortcomings of the licensing scheme, in particular to South Wales and gorge walking:
My decision to not renew my license following our telephone discussion was one based on two strands of thought. The first was my young people's provision had been reduced and that those larger enquiries for youth work were not converting to actual provision as there seems not to be enough money to pay a decent rate for the service. The second was dissatisfaction with my last inspection, some comments made and a two-year license being granted.
I am now in a position where I have no license and have removed licensing details from my website and I am in the process of writing to the two organisers of activities that involve young people and are booked in so that we can come to an arrangement where the work is covered by a licensed provider.
I would like to ask a question, make a complaint and also make an assertion...
Given that my operation procedures and risk assessments are tighter than most, given my staff ratios are industry-leading at 1:8 for all activities, given that my approach to working through well-developed and regular peer group training events is applauded by AALS and given that my kit provision has for many years surpassed all other adventure activity providers working in South Wales, shouldn't it be the case that I ought to be a licensed provider as young people would be safer with me and my staff than with a good many other licensed activity providers?
My complaint is about some poor provisions that I spotted yesterday at the gorge.
'LEA Centre' had a group of young people out and I immediately noticed a few things. Trainers, well, a good few plimsolls, flat-soled canvas with no ankle protection, no socks being worn... Then the adult accompanying staff wearing un-protected finger rings. At the waterfall crawl the clients were advised to stand as they crossed which is very much placing the client in a needlessly dangerous situation and at 'loonies leap' the clients were told to climb out on the big jump side, which again is very poor practice and in the event of a fall would result in serious injury.
These noticed acts of poor provision show the staff’s lack of training or knowledge of the environment, not following risk assessments or poorly written risk assessments, not following technical advice or poor technical advice, poor client care and in general a very sloppy approach to taking a school group gorge walking.
'Private activity centre' was spotted with a fair few groups out in the gorge all wearing inappropriate footwear, deck shoes, trainers, plimsolls etc. All school age. And also they are still using their surf helmets for gorge walking. I spoke or wrote to you about these at least five years ago, maybe more and asked the question then was a helmet without hard forehead protection a suitable helmet for gorge walking where trips and falls forward are, for some companies, common?
I have been banging on about these issues now for what seems like a lifetime and to date, despite an implied agreement that centres kitting out clients in deck shoes for gorge walking are offering poor provision and will be spoken to, this continues to occur on every occasion that I am in the gorge. And that means that there is something wrong here, something wrong with licensing. If the authority tasked to protect young people from avoidable injury whilst taking part in adventurous activities is not able, despite years of prodding and poking, despite rafts of specific evidence, despite the ability to police and to make things happen, is not able to care for young people, then the UK Government is right and the Welsh Government is wrong and AALS ought to be abolished.
Please take this as an assertion that I am looking out for what I see as poor levels of client care and activity provision and I will be reporting these to the licensing authority. I will be expecting some action taken and also some feedback re the action taken. I do not want to hear 'we will approach this at their next inspection', or 'I spoke to them and they said the shoes worn by the group were within our risk assessment guidelines...' that's just not good enough anymore. I am not about to see the continued abuse of the system, which certainly economically disadvantages those of us that work within the guidelines and best practice advice, allowing cowboy outfits the opportunities to reap cash rewards at the expense of client safety.
Please can you respond to the general points made in this letter as well as the specific complaints about 'LEA' and 'Private' provision.
Andrew
I refer to your e mails about 'LEA' and a company which you refer to simply as 'Private'. I am familiar with the first but not the second (although John Cliffe might be). Please will you forward further details.
With regards to the best type of footwear to wear in any given gorge or in any given conditions I can hardly think of a single subject which attracts more opinions. Even the specialist canyoning boots have limited effectiveness in spite of their prohibitive expense.
Thank you for bringing these matters to our attention.
'Private' are based in 'P'.
This response at this stage is not good enough.
At the start of licensing I had a discussion with John Cliffe about appropriate footwear and way back then he said that clients’ own trainers were not good enough as the provider did not know what they would turn up in, so old and worn with no tread or deck shoes etc. He advised I bought and supplied walking boots or wellington boots. I, therefore, took his advice and have been supplying appropriate footwear for the activity ever since.
I have complained since that discussion with John, to the licensing service about the licensing services seeming inability to do anything about other companies allowing clients to take part in gorge walking in footwear as inappropriate as Crocs or plimsolls or deck shoes or very old and tired trainers. Now that I don't have a license I feel that I am in a position to pursue this matter to the fullest extent.
So - are you saying that because gorge footwear is contentious the licensing service are unable to act? Are you saying therefore that it is OK for providers working with young people to allow participation in a gorge walk in footwear designed for sport in a school hall?
It is proven that the major injuries and incidents that are reported in the gorge are, in the main, the result of poor footwear choices.
Please can you do as I ask and tell me what the intentions of the licensing service are on this matter, and what action they will be taken against 'LEA' regarding young people in plimsolls for gorge walking.
With regards to 'Private' please can you advise on the use of a surf helmet which has no hard forehead protection and let me know if this is a suitable helmet for the gorge environment where slips and trips forward are the most likely incident. As stated I have raised my concerns regarding these helmets with John Cliffe in the past. Also, Adventures allowed the use of flat, thin soles canvas types shoes for the young person group that was gorge walking and I'd like to know what the licensing service intends to do about this.
Thank you for your time.
Andrew,
There is an interesting conundrum with the statutory regulation of anything.
What it does is to establish an ACCEPLABLE MINIMUM which all providers must
meet, not some ideal which providers should aspire to but only some may
achieve. Even if they can achieve it they may not be able to sustain it,
whereas all providers must sustain AT LEAST the statutory minimum to retain
their licence. Nor does the regulations allow for the 'bar to be raised' as
and when everyone meets the agreed standard. (That is called creeping
regulation.)
By definition therefore, almost every provider will be doing MORE that the
minimum which the law requires, and will therefore likely be doing more than
at least some of their licence holding competitors. This situation may be
familiar to you.
The conundrum is what we should do about this? We cannot insist that ALL
providers attain the standards we would like to see, because the law says
they don't have to. (In practice this means that if we refuse a licence to
a provider who was not working to the level we and the rest of the sector
would like to see, but are nevertheless doing the minimum which the law
considers to be ACCEPTABLE, they could simply appeal the decision and the
court would likely support their appeal.)
The strap line with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
(RoSPA) uses is that "things should be as safe as necessary, not necessarily
as safe as possible". That rather sums the situation up quite well.
Marcus
Sorry, Marcus but this doesn't answer my questions or deal with the concerns that have been an ongoing and sometimes difficult theme between myself and the licensing authority for what must be the last fifteen years.
The least I want from the licensing authority is an answer to my two questions and if such answers are not forthcoming, and as a matter of urgency, I will be taking this matter further.
Your response is interesting in that although I did discuss standards and asserted that Wales Outdoors has been consistently working to a higher standard than most activity providers, as evidenced by a minimum staff-to-client ratio of 1:8 and more kit provided to clients than the most offer, this was not the main thrust of my emails and it appears this, standards, is the only aspect that you have responded to...
I am not asking that all providers work to an increasingly higher standard, just that all work to a clearly defined minimum standard and one which any sensible layperson is able to see the sense of. I say this as I have in the past been told by a licensing authority inspector, obviously frustrated by my assertions of being economically disadvantaged because of my diligence in supplying more safety kit than most other providers, that if I didn't want to provide boots for gorge walking that I should find a new technical advisor who agreed with trainers in the gorge.
It is agreed that caving groups should not wear trainers. How would you feel about a licensed provider taking a youth group into Porth Yr Ogof wearing board shorts and trainers, or maybe gym trousers and gym shoes, you know, plimsolls, or perhaps even slip on Crocs without socks and no ankle protection whatsoever... As far as I can tell, you would ask them to supply appropriate clothing and footwear and if they didn't you would threaten them with the removal of their license.
I see very little difference between the type of activity that groups undertake during a caving trip and the activity that they undertake during a gorge walking trip and yet, despite my complaining every year for what must be close to fifteen years now, there are still providers, some of them LEA's, taking young people gorge walking in training shoes that the client themselves have supplied, some of which are running shoes, some are Gym and as reported last year some of which are Crocs.
All of the cases that I have reported have not resulted in a removal of licence and as far as I can see no provider seems to be in fear of losing a license for these reasons.
So, I would like answers to my questions and I shall remind you of them...
Is it acceptable to the licensing authority for a licensed activity provider to be taking groups of young people gorge walking in the mixed terrain of the Sychryd in the client’s own footwear which usually ranges from good running shoes through old and treadless to slip on flat soled pumps, usually with no socks?
Is it acceptable to the licensing authority for a licensed activity provider to be taking groups of young people gorge walking in the mixed terrain of the Sychryd where trips and falls forward are by far the most likely incident and to provide the client with helmets that offer no hard forehead protection?
I think I first asked the first question about 13 years ago (and have repeatedly asked it, every year, since) and first asked the second question about five years ago.
I think that the licensing authority must now answer these questions, and in good time, as I for one am very tired of banging this drum and I would like to put the issue to rest. A very simple yes or no to each question would be desirable.
