Adventure Activities Licensing Authority


The Adventure Activities Licensing Authority is the licensing authority for outdoor activity centres for young people in Great Britain. Since 2007 it has been part of the Health and Safety Executive, the government body charged with overseeing health and safety in all workplaces. AALA inspect and issue licences to providers. These licences give an assurance that, so far as is reasonably practicable, participants and employees can be 'safe'.

Creation

The AALA was created following the Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy in March, 1993 which involved a commercial organisation assuming responsibility for children's safety. A group of eight pupils and their teacher were accompanied by two instructors from an outdoor centre on the south coast of England. As a result of a series of errors, four of the teenagers drowned. The subsequent trial resulted in the prosecution of the parent company and the centre manager. The government initially resisted changing legislation until David Jamieson, the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport, who represented the parents of the children who died, introduced a Private Member's Bill which in January 1995 became the Activity Centres Act 1995. In January 1995 an independent licensing authority, the AALA, was created to bring the act into reality.

Scope

The activities within the scope of the licensing scheme are:
On 15 October 2012, Lord Young of Graffham, recommended that the AALA be abolished and the existing statutory licensing regime be replaced by a code of practice.
The January 2016 update from the AALA reported that "... responsibility for the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority is likely to move from the Department for Work and Pensions to Department for Culture Media & Sport ..."