Tina wrote:
"As a CBE.......I am interested to hear of your rationale for CBE's requiring professional indemnity insurance.....would love to hear from you on this issue should you be willing to share."
I would be more than willing.
The rational being - I suppose - that although we are "only" giving information and facilitating parents to explore their own options - it is not unknown for parents to assume that what we are doing is giving them "advice". If they act on that "advice" and -something were to go wrong - we could expose ourselves to litigation.
In 4 years of work as a CBE I have not once had a complaint of any kind, but would feel vulnerable without the protection of insurance. Perhaps this is the result of coming from the UK, but I feel that the UK is no more litigious than Australia.
The NCT had it's own professional liability insurance to cover us for those eventualities. It was not unknown for parents to complain to the professional body covering NCT teachers - although these are few and far between - particularly if you consider that the NCT has 800 teachers and "teaches" about 16,500 parents per year. Most complaints were minor and easily resolved, but the insurance was there as a back up. I have professional indemnity insurance in my work as a Patent Attorney and feel that I would want it for my CBE work.
I will keep you posted :-)
Debbie Slater
CBE - Perth, WA
