In Brief: Bureaucracy prevents education

'small-minded bureaucracy' prevents children from enjoying play and learning about risk sensibly, according to the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Tom Mullarkey. 'A skinned knee or a twisted ankle in a challenging and exciting play environment is not only acceptable, it is a positive necessity to educate our children and to prepare them for a complex, dangerous world in which healthy, robust activity is more a national need than ever before,' he said.