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Tree Risk Assessments - The Law?!


Nimby
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I would like to ask what are the minimum requirements in terms of quals and experience for carrying out TRA's and/or Tree Health and Safety Reports.

 

It appears that there are numerous 'systems' out there at the moment, TRAQ, QTRA, VTA, VALID & Helliwell etc, but what risks are you taking yourself if you do not use any of these?

 

Is there any case law out there whereby someone carrying out a report that had consequences due to their lack of a system? If that makes sense?

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You just need to read the cases where accidents arise after trees are "inspected". What typically happens is the land owner gets sued & their insurers settle. The land owner's insurers sues the "inspector", dependent on what insurance they have in place - the more insurance, the more likely you are to be sued.

 

If the "inspector" is an employee or has either none or next to no insurance, it is possible that they "get away" with it. Egg on face, embarrassed possibly.....but if you wanted to inspect trees again, you might find your reputation had taken a bit of a hit. Read the Cavanagh v Witley judgment & you will see a name in there....permanently imbedded in the public domain, never to be removed.

 

The system used to inspect trees is pretty irrelevant unless your professional body has given you guidance to use one or to adopt a particular approach or method; in the absence of that, you are pretty much free to use whatever system you want, provided it makes some sense....preferably to more than just yourself.

 

There are no minimum standards in terms of qualifications or experience & that makes life a bit tough for potential clients, who normally have no idea where to start.

 

Consequences? That's why you have insurance - professional indemnity insurance. If you are routinely checking trees you might want to have £5million cover, but £1million is more often the norm (& cheaper!). If anything happens you pass the matter onto them.......

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Thanks Jon, but I am more than aware of insurances and how that works.

 

My question is: If you are carrying out Tree Health and Safety Reports, do you need to be using any of the known systems?

 

Put it another way. Say you are a fully insured Arb Consultant (10 years on the tools and 10 years as a TO for eg) do you need to be using any of the recognised systems listed above. I know they are useful, just needing to know how important they are in legal terms?  

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You need a robust and systematic approach to tree inspections, applied consistently and methodically, which may involve one of the afore mentioned but doesn't have to. The Lantra "Professional Tree Inspection" (PTI) certification training is well worth undertaking if you haven't already.

Regards 

Paul 

 

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  On 13/05/2020 at 20:53, daltontrees said:

I think you need to explain a Tree Health and Safety Report. What is that? Is it something different from a Tree Risk Assessment?

 

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It's a good point, that I don't know the answer to.

 

If a private business is asking "are these trees safe" because they are carrying out a Health and Safety Audit, are you saying they need a TRA? And if they do, do you NEED to be licensed/trained in one of the systems listed above?

 

If you aren't, are you running a risk yourself? Does qualification/study and experience not count as enough?

 

 

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  On 13/05/2020 at 18:48, AA Teccie (Paul) said:

You need a robust and systematic approach to tree inspections, applied consistently and methodically, which may involve one of the afore mentioned but doesn't have to. The Lantra "Professional Tree Inspection" (PTI) certification training is well worth undertaking if you haven't already.

Regards 

Paul 

 

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Thanks Paul. I see that course as more training, rather than a system?

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Nimby

Simply put there are no "minimum requirements" if you are looking for a written standard against which you wish to compare your qualifications & experience. You can advertise yourself on the internet.....without any qualifications & experience.....& if people respond & ask you to check trees out (whatever language you use) & you do so & they pay you, you have a business. Lots of people do this......you just need to Google to see what's out there. If the clients don't ask you about insurance, if they don't know what the difference between a NPTC logo and a LANTRA PTI course is &  you have some nice software & some experience of tree surgery (or you could be a tree surgeon yourself & just offer to undertake the work you are recommending), you could even dress yourself up under the banner of being a "consultant". Nice!

 

But your initial question asks about "risks". There are lots of "risks". There is a risk you get it wrong. A "system" may assist you in being more thorough, keeping better records, defending any claim that does come in. I have been asked to review a small number of professional indemnity claims where a "tree surgeon" has been considered to have surveyed/checked trees. The absence of records makes a defence quite difficult.....& of course the reason for the investigation is that there has been an accident and or a claim.

 

We might hope that the use of a system might reduce the risk of their being claims, or if there were a claim, that after preliminary investigation, no right minded arboricultural expert would be willing to opine that what had been done was not adequate.....my own experience is that a methodical approach that some systems provide means that whilst inspecting large numbers of trees a record is kept of what was done.....so it will be easier to audit post-event.

 

I won't say that any system is better than any other system. From what I have seen there are strengths and weaknesses to most systems. The inherent strength of any inspection is the experience and knowledge of the person undertaking the inspection, but we have little guidance on how much "inspection" is required. 1 minute per tree, 5 minutes per tree, 15 minutes per tree.....on average? 

 

You ask for case law:

 

I have already pointed out Cavanagh v Witley

Also read Poll v Bartholemew

 

You will be looking for a needle in a haystack with Poll, because you will be looking for details of the survey undertaken prior to the event. It almost gets forgotten about.

 

The survey prior to the accident in Cavanagh v Witley plays a greater role, but you would need a verbal confidential briefing to understand how the tree surveyor was not pursued further.....or maybe they are being pursued.....but it's just not in the public domain for us to find out.

 

So, in brief:

 

i) no minimum standard, in terms of being stopped from working

ii) applying no standard methodology or using an idiosyncratic methodology for tree inspection/risk assessment means a) you've probably reinvented the wheel, or not b) you're making life harder for yourself & running greater risks than you need to

iii) when I ran a team of consultants in a large consulting organisation, the upper echelons would look at risk assessment work & simply ask why would  you want to do it......small fees......large risks......doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter whether it is tree risk assessment or flood risk assessment or any other form of risk assessment. All it takes is one high value claim.....& the more trees you assess the more likely it is that a tree doesn't behave itself. So bear that in mind!

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