'Stark' drop off in Scottish council water safety policies, accident prevention charity warns

Number of drownings in Scotland disproportionately high compared to the rest of the UK

A leading accident prevention charity has highlighted “concerning” new research that shows the vast majority of local authorities in Scotland do not have water safety policies in place.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said there was “a clear need for policy-level commitments” from local government bodies, and pointed to research showing the number of drownings in Scotland is disproportionately high compared to the rest of the UK.

The charity’s latest study, part of a decade-long effort to establish the policies and programmes in place to tackle drowning, found just 25 per cent of local authorities had a water safety policy. That is sharply down on similar research carried out a decade ago, when 44 per cent of councils had such policies in place. As recently as 2018, the figure was 41 per cent.

RoSPA, which described the trend as a “stark decrease”, said it was “unclear” why the number of council areas with water safety policies had fallen so sharply over the past ten years. It has urged all councils to put policies in place over the next few years.

While the study pointed to improvements in interagency working and evidence of good practice across the country, with most councils aware of the “national direction” of water safety issues, it identified room for improvement across the majority of authorities.

Although nine out of ten councils ranked water safety as an important issue in relation to other service demands, more than a third (32 per cent) of councils did not have a named person or department responsible for water safety. However, that represents an improvement on 2013, when 66 per cent did not have any named water safety leads.

The RoSPA research also found less than half (41 per cent) of councils had carried out risk assessments of bodies of open water over the past 24 months. Some 31 per cent of councils said they hadn’t, while 28 per cent didn’t know.

Swimmers jumping into Loch Lomond from a pier at Luss. Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Underlining the need for robust water safety policies, the charity pointed to data from the Water Incident Database (WAID), which shows Scotland’s rate of accidental drowning is 0.82 per 100,000 – triple the rate of England and nearly double that of Northern Ireland.

The WAID data shows there were 45 accidental drowning fatalities in Scotland and 37 water related suicides in 2022. Although there have been small decreases in accidental fatalities, RoSPA stressed “it is clear that drowning fatalities and water-related harm remains a serious issue in Scotland”.

Carlene McAvoy, leisure safety manager at RoSPA, said: “This ten-year comparative research shows an improved picture of water safety in Scotland, demonstrating that the issue is further up the radar of local councils. Furthermore, most local authorities were aware of Scotland’s drowning prevention strategy and, in many cases, work closely with Water Safety Scotland.

“However, it is also clear that there is a clear need for policy-level commitments to water safety – and we believe all local authorities should aim to have a water safety policy no later than 2026, in line with Scotland’s drowning prevention policy. We encourage all of Scotland’s local authorities to take water safety seriously by creating thorough water safety policies that help protect people.”