FEATURE
CULTURE CLASH
Compensation culture is a myth and widespread belief in its existence has led to the loosening of health and safety regulation in England and Wales. This puts working people at an unfair disadvantage warns Louisa Chambers, Complex Injury Solicitor at Spencers Solicitors.
Britain is sick. Our society is on the brink of collapse. Rotten to the core. Why? Well, if you believe what you read, we are all collectively suffering from the ailment known as ‘compensation culture’.
Last month, insurance firm Aviva announced a 21% rise in fraudulent claims. In August, Axa chief Paul Evans told The Daily Telegraph that Britain was experiencing a “cultural shift” to a culture of compensation which was “becoming a real issue for society”. In June, dour and with no hint of irony, The Times reported that the Ministry of Justice would be setting its “sights on compensation culture”.
This is a dangerous misrepresentation of the facts and not based in reality. At Spencers Solicitors, we see people coming through our doors who feel embarrassed to be making a claim at all. For these people, making a compensation claim is not an easy decision but often a necessary one if, for example, an injury has prevented them from earning a living. In our experience, the British ‘stiff upper lip’ is alive and well. But don’t just take our word for it, a recent YouGov poll showed that only 25% of Brits would even consider making a claim if they suffered an injury - a figure down from 29% in 2013. This hardly seems a case of rampant compensation culture.
www.tomorrowshs.com
More importantly, perhaps, is that the very idea of compensation culture is a divisive one, and only serves to create mistrust and suspicion. The implication of the phrase is, of course, that everyone wants something for nothing and will cheat, steal and lie to get it. As the research shows, this is patently untrue and employers should beware of any assumptions about compensation culture - which takes the lowest common denominator and applies it to everyone. The myth pits employer against employee and dangerously assumes that all workers are out to make a quick buck. We fear that this distracts from the real issue at play here: keeping people safe.
HSOs, employers and personal injury lawyers all have a common duty. We should be proud, not only to have a system that allows injured people to seek justice, but also to have one that has led to the UK having the best worker safety record in Europe.
Unfortunately, the introduction of section 69 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act endangers this record. In 2011, Professor Ragnar E Löfstedt was commissioned by the government to write a review looking at the possibility of “reducing the burden of health and safety regulation on businesses while maintaining the progress made in improving health
and safety”. He found that the concept of a rife ‘compensation culture’ was not based on any tangible evidence. However, the belief in its existence caused an ‘over-compliance’ with health and safety regulations.
In response to the report, the government removed the ‘strict liability’ of employers and applied the term ‘reasonably practical’ to every regulation within the six pack, thereby essentially reducing the importance of health and safety rules and regulation. Of course, this is old news now but it’s an uncomfortable reminder that the belief in compensation culture (which, remember, doesn’t exist) is powerful enough to change the law to the detriment of those we are all trying to protect.
While it seems dubious that a claim rate of only 25% justifies the label of compensation culture, what of the other 75%? That is a significant proportion of the population who may be entitled to make a claim but decide not to and a significant number of potential incidents for which no one would be held accountable. That, surely, is the problem that really requires tackling.
www.spencerssolicitors.com
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