Sunday Mercury: Pupil gets £7,000 after slipping on wet school floor
EXCLUSIVE SHOCKING COST OF PAYOUTS IN MIDLANDS
A PUPIL has been awarded £7,000 compensation by Midland education bosses - for slipping on a wet floor at school.
And Birmingham City Council has paid out £4,500 to another student who injured themselves while dismounting from an exercise bench. In total, the authority handed out £35,000 in personal injury claims to pupils last year.
The astonishing figure has raised fears that "chancer" students and parents are taking advantage of a growing compensation culture.
Teaching unions say many payments are being made for minor accidents that have always commonly occurred in schools.
Birmingham education bosses paid out £34,000 to 11 pupils making personal injury claims last year.
Other cases included:
A £5,000 award to a pupil who hurt their foot on a bench;
A £4,000 payout to a schoolboy left injured by a concrete post during football training;
And a pupil receiving £3,500 after falling over gym equipment.
The remaining six awards each totalled less than £2,000 each.
Nationally, schools are estimated to have paid out around £2 million in personal injury settlements to pupils last year. Teachers were awarded £20 million for incidents ranging from violent pupil attacks to classroom accidents.
Lynn Collins, Midlands Regional Secretary for the National Union of Teachers, said schools were having to deal with compensation claims that would not previously have been made. "Parents are more aware that they can make a claim these days," she said.
"Yet many of these things would have happened when they were at school and no-one would have dreamt of pursuing compensation for them." She added: "But they (the cases) do highlight the importance of health and safety in schools.
"And teachers have claimed when these arrangements have failed too."
Blair Gibbs, of the Taxpayers' Alliance pressure group, was also astonished at the pay-outs.
He said: "We are concerned about the growing compensation culture in schools. Awards paid out involves taxpayers' money which affects everyone. It is not the same as making a claim against a private company.
"Some awards are paid out far too quickly without enough checks being made as to their validity. This is encouraging chancers to try to win cash for claims they might not have submitted previously. And many solicitors firms are offering to pursue these claims on a no-win-no-fee basis. Lots of local authorities now receive claims from solicitors firms, rather than directly from the claimants themselves."
But a Birmingham City Council spokesman said: "Each individual case has to be considered on its own merits. "Legal advice is sought where necessary."
Comments