Frank Furedi talks to Tim Black about his new report on how the compensation frenzy is fuelling a climate of suspicion across the public sector.

The stories of Britain’s growing ‘compensation culture’ are as numerous as they are dispiriting.

There was the woman who won nearly £25,000 (plus £30,000 in legal fees) for having hurt her hip while using a revolving door at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. There was the teacher who earned himself an extra £500 after straining his wrist restraining a pupil. There was the Rotherham schoolboy who was granted nearly £6,000 after having his hand splashed with hot custard. Given the sheer volume of compensation claims now being made each year, there must be thousands of stories like this. There are no accidents anymore; there are only people to blame.

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in the public sector, where, in both healthcare and education, avoiding lawsuits has become routine. It is no longer exceptional for a doctor or a teacher to be concerned that their behaviour or one of their decisions might end up subject to a legal complaint; rather, such recourse is almost expected these days. Likewise, so-called service users, be they pupils’ parents or hospital patients, are encouraged to see themselves as potential complainants, to view themselves as consumers with a right to take the legal route if they feel like it.

(…) I would say that many of the big problems in the public sector – in particular the loss of the public-sector ethos – are linked to the fact that if you have people watching their back, then their commitment to the service they provide will dissipate.’

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In the words of primary-school headteacher Paul, interviewed in Furedi and Bristow’s report, ‘when there is an accident at school, the first concern is “lawsuit” – it used to be the child’. Elsewhere, the report tells us the story of Lorraine, an auxiliary nurse. Currently off work after injuring her back catching an elderly patient as he fell off the toilet, her managers have been far from sympathetic. Quite the opposite: they are angry that she violated litigation-avoidance rules. ‘They say you shouldn’t catch patients’, said Lorraine. ‘But what are you supposed to do – let them fall on the ground?’

This is one of the main social costs of institutionalising litigation-avoidance: the destruction of professional autonomy. Professionals no longer work according to their judgement, deciding how best to meet the needs of patients or pupils as situations present themselves. Instead, as Furedi explains, ‘they have to continually worry about whether their decision will lead to complaints, will the complaints lead to lawyers’ involvement, and will that lead to big claims. In that way, professional judgement becomes compromised and is replaced by a box-ticking culture.’