Originally Posted by: mediaid 
It would appear that the Löfstedt Review concluded that the Health & Safety (First Aid) Regulation 1981 gives HSE no lawful authority to approve First Aid training providers and intend to deregulate HSE approval. That being the case since HSE have been charging training providers for HSE approval one can only conclude that HSE had no lawful authority to charge organisations and I for one will be contacting HSE should they decide to carry out the Löfstedt Review recommendations (which is highly likely). I will also be seeking support from my trade organisations and hope all other HSE approved training providers do the same.
It is clear that if the following the Löfstedt Review if Löfstedt is correct that HSE have been acting Ultra vires and so had no right to charge training providers.
Here is the problem. Those people who registered handed over their money to pay for hotels and expenses of a money for old rope section of a quango. They did so willingly. The argument would be that those people handed that money over under duress - ie risk of prosecution for not handing over money, but the duress must be both real and proximate. The HSE defence will be that they have never once prosecuted anyone ever and have never even uttered so much as a threat that they would. Every time a person or company has been reported for delivering FAW courses when not registered, they did nothing, so there was never any risk of prosecution so the threat of duress fails. Of course had anyone ever challenged their authority before this report then a court decision would have opened up the way for everyone to recover their ransom.
Due to falling revenue and the risk of being got rid of, the FAAMS dept decided off its own bat - and again without lawful authority, to "regulate" the 1 day appointed person course, and renamed it the EFAW. Now realising some time ago that they were down the road, they closed the office, shut the phones and the email off and now can only be communicated with via conventional mail.
With regard to Ofqual - some people on the site seem very fond of it, unless it is a legal requirement to have this "membership", why should anyone hand over a proportion of their hard earned to yet another quango? We've already seen the reality of the much hyped HPC and more recently the CQC. It has made no difference, and has in fact made everything worse. The HPC have never prosecuted anyone, and the CQC are a proven bunch of toothless muppets who are widely recognised as a failing and not fit for purpose mickey mouse outfit.
I would be interested to hear of any developments should anyone issue proceedings against the HSE, but I fear that if it ever reached court, and with the sums involved dating back to 1981, the court would issue a policy decision allowing the claim to succeed but awarding no compensation as the amount owed by this state funded organisation would stretch to very many millions and the cost would have to be borne by the tax payer.