It may seem as if we’re going on about risk, but the business of an outdoor company is to provide a considered, managed risk for young people – partly to help them develop and partly to give an experience of what can actually be achieved if you try something new. Society is increasingly obsessed with risk for children, even though modern life has made children safer than ever before, and an interesting article at the Institute for Ideas (who run the ‘Culturewars’ website) reviews the atmosphere at a conference in 2007. Although a couple of years old, this is a fascinating insight into what happens when policymakers get together…

‘…The stranglehold of ‘risk management’ on much of public life is perhaps even more worrying than the risk averseness that it seeks to counter. It provides the rationale for a particularly stifling policy orientation to every issue it touches.’

View the article at: (Link expired, sorry)