Opinion poll lessons reveal deficit in Government safety spending

An updated PolicyBristol briefing has revealed that people's health and safety have been greatly undervalued in the UK for the past 20 years. In the updated policy document , University of Bristol research shows that while opinion polls are not infallible, they are more accurate than the method used by the UK government to value human life. The government currently uses a measure known as the value of a prevented fatality or VPF to determine spending on safety across several major departments, including the Department for Transport. In contrast with political opinion polls, which generally survey a minimum of 1,000 people to achieve the standard three per cent margin of error, the VPF is based on a survey of only 167 people, carried out 20 years ago. The research behind the new briefing shows that determining an accurate figure for the VPF by survey would require interviewing between 2,000 and 3,000 UK citizens. Philip Thomas, professor of risk management in the Safety Systems Research Centre at the University of Bristol who authored the new research, said: "The sample size was tiny compared with what it needed to be. The fact that so few people were questioned adds to the many problems surrounding the VPF.