Official Report 369KB pdf
Home Safety Officers (PE758)
I welcome our first group of witnesses, from whom we will take evidence on petition PE758, which was submitted by Jim Black of the home safety committee of the Scottish Accident Prevention Council. The petition, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to place a statutory requirement on local authorities to employ home safety officers, was passed on to us by the Public Petitions Committee and we decided to take evidence on it.
The committee has received our briefing paper. The Scottish Accident Prevention Council has been around since 1931 and has campaigned for a long time to improve safety in Scotland in a variety of ways. The home safety committee feels that, in the 21st century, it is time that we reduced the number of people who are injured in their own homes.
Do any other members of the panel wish to make introductory remarks?
As we all know, we have road safety officers in Scotland; we fully support them. Over the years, they have had targets to reduce the number of accidents on our roads. Far more accidents happen in the home environment, however. We are calling for a system of home safety officers, with the aim of reducing the number of accidents in the home. If we were able to do that—if people had fewer accidents—we would save money for the national health service. We are calling for a spend-to-save scheme.
We cover accident prevention in all areas: at work, on the road and at home. Many more resources go into the prevention of occupational and road accidents than go into the prevention of accidents at home.
Since the petition came to the Public Petitions Committee, I have taken a keen interest in the debate on the issues. Some of the evidence seems to run counter to your argument. Local authorities have told us that they already provide such a service, although perhaps not in exactly the way that you propose. How widespread among local authorities is the provision of home safety services? What are the gaps, of which authorities may not be aware?
Some local authorities employ full-time home safety officers, whereas others add home safety to the remit of their trading standards or environmental health officers. However, the scale of the problem is so large that a dedicated, full-time person is needed in each authority if everything is to be pulled together. There are about six or seven full-time home safety officers in Scotland and about the same again with a part-time remit.
You mentioned earlier that you co-ordinate safety across a whole host of agencies. From my constituency experience, I know that the fire and rescue service is now much more proactive in its work. Changes to the service mean that officers visit people in their homes and address safety issues. Will you give us a flavour of your discussions with fire and rescue services on the role that they could play in filling the gaps?
As I am based in Edinburgh, I will give examples of what is happening in Edinburgh at the moment. Recently, I started a home-check scheme for older people in the city. Given that it is not possible for me to cover 500,000 people on my own, I have gone into partnership with the Care and Repair Forum Scotland's handyperson service. When an older person requests a home-check visit, one of Care and Repair's volunteers goes out and gives them advice. If any small jobs need to be done, the handyperson service can do them free of charge.
You give the impression that, although that work is taking place, it is happening on an ad hoc basis. The petition is about trying to ensure that each local authority adopts best practice and undertakes home safety checks by way of making a commitment to employ a full-time officer. Have you costed your proposal? What are the costs to local authorities and what are the savings for the health service by way of a reduction in demand?
The only costs to a local authority would be the costs involved in the home safety officer post, which would depend on the salary that was agreed by the authority. As I said, given that we co-ordinate and pool resources, we are able to create a synergy that is greater than the sum of the parts. There would be no real costs over and above the salary of one home safety officer per authority.
To cut down to the bare minimum, what you are asking for is one officer per local authority.
Yes.
I also strongly support the petition and what you are trying to do. As a former science teacher, I know that home safety is considered in the early years of the secondary part of the curriculum, particularly from the electrical side: fire and so on. It seems a logical progression for agencies to work together. In what ways have you tried to dovetail with the education side? I was thinking not only about contacting the Minister for Education and Young People but about working with local authorities and within schools. You have also said that you would like restrictions to be placed on the sale of matches and cigarette lighters to persons under the age of 16. Will you talk a bit more about that?
Through home safety Scotland, practitioners—some of whom are sitting in the public gallery—have a lot of contact with schools; they give presentations to and run events with schools. Here in Edinburgh, we have just built the risk factory, which is the first purpose-built experiential learning centre in Scotland. All primary 7 pupils from East Lothian, West Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh will go through the risk factory, which will teach them about all aspects of personal safety, including home safety. A lot of good work is going on with education departments, but it varies from local authority to local authority.
Would you support that proposal, as well as getting your home safety officers?
I thought that John Russell had just put that in as a wish list for himself. He supported us and then he threw in "I wish this could happen as well." Thanks to ROSPA's work, things are already changing and there is European legislation on child-resistant lighters.
It is probably not necessary to declare this, but Mr Topping and I were on Grampian Regional Council's public protection committee many years ago.
The simple answer is that many local authorities would love to have a safety officer and have given their support to the SAPC, as has the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association. Seventy-eight per cent of hospitals throughout Scotland have supported what we are doing. However, as with resources for the Scottish Parliament, there is no bottomless supply of money in Government finance. The Government has to fund many mandatory areas, such as education, so there is not a lot of money left to do other things. As a result of accidents in the home, more than 18,000 people go to accident and emergency, not counting people who go to their local doctor; in 2003, 226 people died as a result of such accidents. When people consider the numbers, we have their support.
In your submissions, both of your organisations identified the fact that 226 people died in 2003 as a result of accidents in the home. Apart from fires, which account for 70 or 80 of those deaths, are there any large categories that are a major concern?
Falls are a big killer among older people.
Are there any other categories of accidents that a home safety officer would be able to focus on as an area in which reductions could be made?
Falls, burns, scalds, poisonings—those are the main categories.
Burns and scalds are some of the worst and most upsetting injuries and could easily be avoided. They are also some of the most expensive injuries to treat. If a child is scalded by a bath that is too hot or by a spilled cup of tea, they will have to have years and years of skin grafts, which will cost a lot of money. Fortunately, those accidents tend not to be as numerous as falls among older people.
Do you target particular types of properties or are your investigations across the board?
It varies among authorities. In Edinburgh, I am fortunate enough to have quite good statistics that I have broken down into postcode areas, which means that I can specifically target the postcode areas where most accidents take place. In other areas, the statistics might not be as good as Edinburgh's are or might be collected in a different way. The collection of statistics is a problem, but that is another issue. All households will be targeted, however.
Ms Colles mentioned scalding. The Parliament received a petition about the possibility of fitting anti-scald valves in domestic water supply systems. She also mentioned the possibility that someone could be scalded by a spilled cup of tea. There are two distinct issues.
They should definitely do so. A requirement to fit such valves is now part of building standards regulations, thanks to the petition that you mentioned. However, the requirement applies only to new and refurbished properties.
The convener asked about categories of accidents. What is the major fault that you find in dwellings, apart from smoke alarms that have no battery?
It varies. A person's lifestyle is probably the major problem. A few years ago, we conducted a survey in Edinburgh and found that some of the most expensive houses had the most tripping hazards because people could not afford to maintain the property once they had paid their large mortgage and council tax payments. We found that people were rattling around inside unsafe houses with worn carpets, stair treads and so on.
Some of the comments that have been made today have raised the issue of duplication of work. Why do we have a Scottish Accident Prevention Council as well as a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents? How big are the organisations? How are they funded? How many people do they employ?
In the United Kingdom, ROSPA employs about 100 people altogether. I think that eight of those are employed in Scotland, in our Edinburgh office. Of those eight, two are funded by the Scottish Executive's Health Department to promote home safety in Scotland. ROSPA covers all areas of safety. A lot of our effort goes into road safety, water safety and occupational safety. Our main office is in Birmingham, but we have a few people in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The SAPC is a charity that is funded by membership fees from local authorities and health boards. It has three main committees, dealing with road safety, home safety and water and leisure safety. It has no employees. The board of the SAPC includes an elected member and an official from every local authority. Health boards nominate people to sit on the board as well, as does the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association.
What came first, ROSPA or the SAPC? If the SAPC came after ROSPA, why was there a need for an SAPC? Why did you not just let ROSPA get on with it?
ROSPA does not have enough staff to cover the whole of Scotland. As you heard, it has only two home safety people.
I am just interested in why we have two organisations that—from your explanations—seem to duplicate a range of functions.
I do not think that we duplicate functions. The SAPC is local authority based and does work relating to sharing information, whereas ROSPA is more of a campaigning body.
Yes. We are a lobbying and campaigning body. We are a charity as well and are a very small organisation, compared with the size of the accident problem.
I understand that; I am just saying that there seems to be an element of duplication in relation to the two bodies, both of which receive funding from the taxpayer to perform safety functions.
The SAPC takes a partnership-working approach, which is something that everyone always talks about. ROSPA's two home safety officers give us advice, take minutes and so on. As Mr Black said, membership of the SAPC board includes elected members from all local authorities, council officials, the odd home safety officer—it would be super, obviously, if we were able to have on our board a home safety officer from every council—representatives from CACFOA and members of health boards. All those people work in local communities across Scotland. However, if we had home safety officers in every local authority, we could co-ordinate people's efforts more effectively. Our committee has supported CACFOA with regard to the issue of domestic sprinklers and has done work on safety by design, which involves ensuring that safety features are built into new houses.
If the SAPC is supported by local authorities and uses seconded staff to carry out its work, should you not persuade local authorities—rather than the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Executive—of the case that you are making? Presumably, if local authorities, which support the SAPC, all engaged a home safety officer, the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Executive would not need to tell them to do so. If you persuade your sponsors, you have solved your problem.
I understand your argument, but it comes back to funding—each local authority has only a limited budget and some authorities do not regard having home safety officers as a priority.
Are you saying that the Executive should give resources from the block grant to all councils that are members of SAPC to employ home safety officers?
Yes. That would be a spend-to-save scenario because there would be a reduction in the number of people having accidents.
What evidence is there of a lower accident rate in authorities that have home safety officers as opposed to those that do not?
Any evidence is probably only anecdotal because, as I mentioned earlier, statistics are collected differently in each health board area and it is difficult to prove results one way or the other.
As we mentioned earlier, road safety officers were funded by Government many years ago and targets were set. If the Executive is so minded, I see no reason why there should not be funding for home safety officers in all 32 local authority areas. In that way, we would be able to set targets and get the councils to work in partnership to reduce the number of accidents.
Jim Black said in response to Maureen Watt's question that he envisaged each council having one home safety officer. Is it realistic to expect Glasgow, with 600,000 people, to get by with one home safety officer, when Clackmannan, whose population is barely a tenth of Glasgow's, would also have one officer?
Yes. I am the home safety officer for Edinburgh and I like to think that my co-ordinating role makes a difference to the people of Edinburgh.
So it is part of the efficient government strategy. Might it be over the top to have a home safety officer for Clackmannan? Would it be more sensible to have one officer for Stirling, Clackmannan and Falkirk because the population of those areas is similar to the numbers that you look after in Edinburgh?
Each local authority area is a different size. I cannot speak for Clackmannanshire, although it was a member of home safety Scotland until recently because the authority had a trading standards officer who had a remit for home safety. He has since been moved to Stirling, but still covers Clackmannanshire.
If there were one officer per local authority, by the time back-up provisions were included, one might be spending £1 million or £1.5 million throughout Scotland. When I think about safety messages, I tend to think of national television advertising campaigns about using smoke detectors or campaigns that warn people about the dangers of chip-pan fires, which I understand cause a high proportion of accidents, or the dangers associated with not stubbing out cigarettes and so on. Might not consistent expenditure by the Scottish Executive on national campaigns similar to those that we have for road safety have as much impact—if not a greater impact—on the number of accidents as the employment of a network of safety officers? For the same money, we might end up with fewer accidents. Is that a reasonable proposition?
No, because everything that you have mentioned is already a statutory function. Road safety officers are employed, but money is still put into the adverts.
I was talking about campaigns on smoke detectors in the home, chip-pan fires and people not extinguishing cigarettes.
That is all fire safety stuff, which is covered by CACFOA. Campaigns such as the don't give fire a home campaign are funded by the Scottish Executive.
Indeed they are, but there is funding and funding. Such campaigns have a limited shelf life, but they are responsible for increasing awareness among the general public. The issue comes down to whether it would be better to spend a significant amount of money—in the order of £1 million to £2 million—on wider public education about dangers in the home, or whichever issue is highlighted, or on employing a network of local government officials. Is not that the issue?
We all agree that television adverts reach a big audience. However, surely there is nothing better than having someone working at grass-roots level in the community, whether with toddlers, in schools or with older people—we all know that people are living longer now—to educate them on the range of issues that have been mentioned. Surely that would complement any TV adverts that the Government or CACFOA wanted to put out. Both are important.
I travel all over Scotland and visit lots of different local authorities. A national campaign on television would be fantastic and we would all love to have one, but it would cover only standard accidents or particular on-going issues. Different issues arise in different local authority areas. There are a lot of ethnic minorities and asylum seekers in Glasgow in comparison with Aberdeen, and people in Aberdeen might face different issues and have different practices in the home in comparison with people in a more remote area. Each local authority should have the opportunity to consider its own issues, rather than considering only general, national issues.
That brings us to the end of questioning. We will consider in due course a paper based on the evidence that you have given today and written submissions that we have received from a range of people. We will then consider whether we require to take further evidence from other witnesses or whether we can come to a conclusion and make recommendations with regard to the petition. We will consider all that in a few weeks' time. Thank you for coming along to give evidence in support of the petition.