Let's be clear: Student-led adventure activity groups are genuinely brilliant. As a previous SU Officer myself I know this only too well!
The report is warm in its appreciation of the student volunteers who lead these activities - people who give up enormous amounts of time to share their passion for climbing, paddling, caving or hiking with their peers.
The report notes that many activity leaders are competent and that a real culture of enthusiasm and care exists within these groups.
But there are some issues that inevitably arise when you consider that students leading such groups are volunteering to do so alongside their studies, they are supported by University and Students' Union staff who are dealing with a massive range of sports clubs and societies, and turnover of student volunteers is high.
The report identifies several slightly uncomfortable truths that the sector needs to sit with:
- Supporting organisations can't always evidence that risks are proportionally managed.
The report found that students' unions and university sports departments often can't demonstrate that the risks their affiliated adventure activity groups are taking are being appropriately managed. Risk assessment forms are being ticked, but that's not the same thing.
- Staff don't always have the technical competence to make informed decisions.
A students' union activities coordinator is unlikely to be a qualified mountaineer or paddle sports leader. And yet they're often the person approving a mountaineering club's weekend trip to Snowdonia. This is a structural and feasibility problem, not a criticism of individuals.
- Student groups are acting like independent entities when they're not. Groups use their university's name, appear on the students' union website, and benefit from affiliation, but can often operate without adequate oversight. Participants reasonably assume a level of institutional backing that may not actually exist.
- The processes that exist often don't work well in practice.
Risk assessment forms are based on institutional templates that weren't designed for adventure activity. Emergency procedures sometimes require students to call an office that isn't open at weekends. Incident reporting is poor because students fear their group will be shut down if they're honest.
- Equipment management is inconsistent and often unclear.
Who owns the equipment? Who checks it? When was it last inspected? For many groups and their supporting organisations, the honest answer to all three questions is: we're not entirely sure.
The report makes its recommendations around six principles.
These are a framework for supporting organisations to genuinely evaluate and develop their practice.
They are:
-
Competence Activity leaders are competent to fulfil their roles and responsibilities
-
RiskRisks are identified and appropriately managed
-
Technical AdviceAll aspects of activity provision have access to appropriate technical advice
-
Operations
Operational policies and procedures are implemented, regularly reviewed and responsive
-
Communications
Internal and external communication systems are effective for all parties
-
Equipment
Safety critical equipment is 'fit for purpose'
Competence is described as the foundational principle — and rightly so. Everything else flows from it.
Of all six principles, the Equipment finding is perhaps the one that may catch some unions and clubs most off-guard.
The report found that supporting organisations frequently have limited insight into equipment use, maintenance and storage. Systems for checks, isolation and disposal of equipment vary wildly. Some students' unions weren't even sure what equipment they owned, let alone when it was last inspected.
Critically: personally owned PPE used by participants in group activities is often not being checked at all. In a climbing club where members routinely share harnesses, helmets and ropes, that's a serious gap.
The recommendation (and the law!) is clear: items of critical safety equipment should be routinely inspected and maintained, with records kept.
Where student groups carry out their own checks, supporting organisations should periodically review those logs. And crucially, the people carrying out those checks need to actually know what they're looking for.
This is where practical, accessible training can make a real difference.
One of the report's most practical recommendations is that supporting organisations should invest in structured training for student activity leaders and student group committees, particularly around equipment inspections and risk assessment.
The challenge, as the report acknowledges, is that traditional NGB qualification routes aren't always realistic for students. They're expensive, time-intensive, and often require a level of prior experience that newer committee members simply don't have yet.
Designed for people working in outdoor activity settings, the course gives learners a solid grounding in:
- The legal framework around PPE inspection (LOLER and PUWER)
- The difference between pre-use checks, periodic inspections and thorough examinations
- How to carry out basic pre-use checks of ropes, harnesses, helmets and metalwork
- What to look for, why it matters, and what to do when something isn't right.
For a student climbing club committee member who's just been handed responsibility for a store full of shared equipment, and has never been formally training in carrying out kit checks, this is exactly the kind of structured foundation they need.
Our course is low cost, flexibly delivered online, and a PDF certificate is issued on completion, which means Students' Unions and universities can keep it on file as documented evidence of competency.
That's precisely the kind of paper trail the Safe Adventures report says supporting organisations need to be building.
It won't replace a qualified technical adviser or periodic thorough examination by a competent person - and it's not designed to. But it gives student committee members the language, knowledge and confidence to carry out basic checks properly, and gives supporting organisations something tangible to point to when asked how they're evidencing competence.
The report calls for a new body to facilitate collective working on implementation, and urges NGBs, insurers and supporting organisations to engage with the principles seriously.
These are the right calls, as this isn't a problem any single students' union can solve in isolation.
But while this is being developed, individual organisations need to start somewhere, and the report is helpfully practical about what that looks like:
- better role profiles for volunteer leaders,
- clearer operational procedures,
- live and accessible risk assessments, and
- documented competence for the people handling safety-critical kit.
The students' unions that funded this programme did so with purpose.
The report notes it was initiated by Bristol SU at the request of Dawn Lees, following the death of her son Jack — a student and member of his university's Wild Swimming Society.
That context is a reminder that this work is not about bureaucracy. It's about making sure students can do the things they love, safely, for as long as they want to keep doing them.
If you support adventure activity student groups and want to start building documented evidence of competence - particularly around equipment checks - our "Introduction to PPE Inspections" course is a practical, affordable first step.
You can sign up as an individual, or purchase multiple places on the course for your committee or as a students' union.
Contact us to find out more - at hello@learntheropes.co.uk - or click the link below:
