Manchester City Council's budget for litigating compensation claims is bigger than its budget for repairing its broken pavements (from which many of the claims come)
The extraordinary finding by the absurdly-named Better Regulation Task Force (the only better regulation is minimum regulation) that compensation culture was a "myth" is complete codswallop.
The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Take the Institute of Actuaries - hardly the most excitable of bodies. It produced a 95-page report on compensation culture at the end of 1992 stating that it cost Britain 1% of GDP - £10bn a year.
Moreover, the actuaries said this culture was increasing by 15% a year. The police compensation bill was said to have more than doubled in three years from £160m in 1997 to £330m in 2000 - a staggering 7% of the total police payroll.
And the total cost of criminal injury compensation in the UK in 2000 was £341m to 75 victims - more than all the other member states of the EU combined.
Are teachers' concerns a "myth"? Chris Keates, acting general secretary of teaching union NAS/UWT, has warned of "ambulance-chasing" lawyers targeting homes near schools by pushing leaflets through doorsteps touting for business.
He said: "We are talking about things that in the past would have been regarded as accidents - a child running across the playground and stumbling and cutting his knee."
John Bangs, head of education at the main teaching union NUT, referred to a court decision in which a school had behaved unlawfully in continuing a boy's expulsion after the 45-day suspension had expired. It was a "minefield" for teachers, he added.
A report produced by Norwich Union revealed that "an overwhelming 96% of people in Britain believe we are more likely to seek damages today than we were a decade ago".
If still in doubt, try the BBC Online website for examples of a day in the life of a compensation junkie.
Waking up (Supply of Goods Act: compensation £50-£1,000), getting dressed (Industrial tribunal: £50,000-£100,000), going downstairs (Supply of Goods Act: £50-£5,000), opening the post (Personalv injury, negligence: £1,000-£50,000), breakfast (Supply of Goods Act, personal injury: £50-£5,000), Sending kids to school (Human Rights Act, personal injury: £500-£500,000), getting to work (fare rebates: £10-£500), work (Industrial tribunal, personal injury, Human Rights Act: £50,000-£250,000).
And that just brings us to lunchtime.
Even such a staid body as CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) estimates that the cost of bogus or excessive compensation claims to local authorities is around £117m a year.
CABE says the public is being prevented from enjoying local parks and open spaces by the emergence of a "pervasive US-style compensation culture".
For example, Manchester City Council's budget for litigating compensation claims is bigger than its budget for repairing its broken pavements (from which many of the claims come). This is just the budget for fighting the claims, nine out of ten of which are thrown out of court.
The list is endless. Myth? Nothing could be more real.
I've a good mind to sue the Better Regulation Task Force.
