Our services
Expert Witness Services
RAMA was first approached in the 1990s to provide an Expert Witness service. The case involved a playground injury and RAMA had come to the attention of the instructing solicitor as a consequence of a publication which reviewed the said topic.
Since then, RAMA has been providing Expert Witness services with over 200 cases having been dealt with up to the present day. Initially the main topic dealt with was children’s play safety which had become something of a nationwide hot potato in the 1980s and 90s.
Since this time, RAMA has dealt with cases including industry, historic sites, supermarkets, leisure facilities, parks, fairgrounds, and water slides.
A growth topic has been adventure activities and sports, including caving, climbing, cycling, gymnastics, hockey, running, obstacle courses, zorb football, swimming, off-road motorcycling, trampolining, sledging, climbing and water sports.
The reason that such a wide range of activities can be covered is that RAMA’s primary expertise is in the assessment of risk and its management. Such expertise is applicable to some degree in every accident circumstance.
London Scientific Services report on playground safety (1989)
NTSG (2024)
Camber Sands is typified by a gently shelving beach and fast-moving tides
Poynton Pool
Research and consultancy on risk-related topics for the public and private sectors
RAMA staff have been involved in academic and contract research on risk since 1980.
Projects have been carried out for regulators including the Health and Safety Executive, numerous government departments, the public and private sectors, universities, and international agencies (WHO, IAEA, ECOSA, FIPRA). Where appropriate, some of our outputs have been published and examples are shown here.
We are also aware, through our legal work (insert link), that organisations with responsibilities for managing risks may not have the time or resource to examine or scrutinize their own data banks for maximum benefit.
RAMA can assist here by analysing risks of actual harm and placing them in a more global perspective. For example, if risks are found to be very low there may be no scope, according to the ALARP principle, for further controls. Alternatively, in public activities a comparison of risks versus benefits may be called for.
In this regard, David, along with colleagues from Middlesex University, has been pleased to assist the National Tree Safety Group in formulating their advice on the management of trees from a safety perspective.
In 2017 RAMA provided advice to HM Senior Coroner for East Sussex County Council, who requested assistance in relation to drownings which occurred on Camber Sands during the summer of 2016, and specifically to provide expert advice on what steps could be taken to optimize beach safety, including consideration of the costs and pros and cons of control measures, such that risk might be minimised.
In 2023 RAMA provided an independent report to Poynton Town Council on the proportionality and practicability of proposed flood alleviation measures at Poynton Pool in Cheshire. This resulted from a proposal to raise the existing earth dam to reduce the risk of overtopping. However, doing this would have consequences for the locations amenity value, and raised the issues of proportionality and uncertainty in risk assessment.
In 2023 RAMA contributed to the Carcassonne conference on “The essential beauty of tree avenues” (La beauté essentielle des allées d’arbres) with a research paper on the sometimes-unintended consequences of safety interventions. The issue addressed at Carcassonne was the implementation of the ‘Forgiving roads’ concept in Europe which could lead to the removal of avenues of roadside trees which have intrinsic heritage and cultural value.
Customised presentations, seminars and tutorials
RAMA staff have been teaching risk management of health, safety and the environment at post-graduate level since 1990. Our contact and involvement with the academic research community means that we constantly update our teaching in line with current thinking and developments.
We are more than happy to provide customised education on risk assessment, risk management and decision making for other parties including the public and private sectors and voluntary organisations. In particular, we have done this for several decades on behalf of local authorities, and voluntary groups.
Sessions may typically probe more fundamental issues of risk assessment and risk management. RAMA believes that understanding of fundamentals is essential for success in risk and safety management. Such issues include:
- The meaning of “risk” (not quite as simple as sometimes intimated)
- What it means to live in a “risk-based society” (a term used by the HSE)
- The extent to which risk assessment is easy, as some suggest, or not
- How to turn a risk assessment into a decision about what to do
- The million-dollar question of “How safe is safe enough?”
Why safety decisions are often controversial, even among experts - Unintended consequences of safety interventions and how to reckon with them
David giving seminar to senior managers from the China National Safety Administration at Imperial College (2024)
In 2022 David was keynote speaker at ASEC 2022 for the British Army, where he spoke on ‘The meaning of risk’.
Laurence presenting a paper on managing public risk, University of Nagaoka, Japan (2019).
