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Leeds City Council pay out £1.2m to staff injured at work

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  • by Stuart Robinson
 

Leeds City Council has been forced to pay out more than £1.2m to staff who have had accidents at work in the last five years.

Figures obtained by the YEP show an average of more than a hundred staff every year have put in personal injury claims since 2007.

A trip causing multiple injuries proved the most costly, with a fall causing back injuries also landing council chiefs a with a huge bill.

But the figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also show that an assault at work was one of the top five compensation payouts made over the past five years.

During the period September 2007 to September 2012, a total of 534 employers liability claims were put in by staff.

The council paid out £1,248,518 in respect of those claims during the same period.

A trip which caused multiple injuries cost the authority £150,000 - the most expensive claim.

A fall which left a worker with a back injury resulted in a payout of £123,000 with another fall that caused a broken arm landing the council with a bill of £38,000.

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Defective equipment which caused a shoulder injury resulted in a £21,000 payout.

And the assault claim meant the council had to pay £12,000 to one claimant.

Responding to the figures, a spokeswoman for Leeds City Council said: “We are committed to maintaining a healthy and safe working environment for all our 29,000 staff.

“We have detailed health and safety policies and performance standards in place for all working environments and carry out regular training.

“All of which cannot always, unfortunately, prevent accidents from happening, 
but thankfully accidents are rare.”

Earlier this year Prime Minister David Cameron criticised the UK’s current compensation culture.

He pledged to reduce fees for lawyers on small personal injury claims and reduce overall costs in cases taken on on a “no win, no fee” basis.

Mr Cameron said: “I want to stop trivial claims, free up businesses from the stranglehold of health and safety red tape and look at ways we can bring costs down.”

The Government has pledged to tighten up and consolidate a raft of Health and Safety regulations which cost businesses across the UK an estimated billions of pounds each year.

 

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