Before I turn to this month’s update, I wanted to begin by acknowledging today’s anniversary of 9/11. It is a day that is felt by many, and I want to take a moment to remember those who lost their lives, and to recognise the lasting impact on their families and communities.
This month, I want to focus on some of the areas that come up in our conversations with you:
- how you determine whether or not your event or premises is in scope of Martyn’s Law
- what’s coming in terms of template resources
- how our notification portal will work for organisations of every size
Many of you want to know how we can support you in your efforts to get ready to comply with Martyn’s Law.
The first step for you is to understand whether your event or premises is in scope of Martyn’s Law. There are helpful flowcharts (PDF, 57kb) on Protect UK to explore if you’re likely to be in scope. The Home Office’s Section 27 guidance also provides really useful case studies that should help you work out whether you are in scope and need to comply with the requirements of the new law when it comes in. In addition, we are developing an online tool to help you determine whether or not your premises or event is in scope. This will be available to use in the new year.
We need volunteers to help test this tool first and welcome those premises and events who feel unsure about how Martyn’s Law applies to them to do so. Find out below how to volunteer.
Tools and Templates
For those of you who already know that Martyn’s Law applies to your event or premises, we know your focus will be on determining who is the responsible person and working out what you need to do to comply and when. We want to make sure that this is as straightforward as possible. The Home Office’s Section 27 guidance should be your starting point. In addition, we’ve been developing tools to help you, which we will publish over the coming months. These include templates you can use to document your procedures and measures specific to whether you are in the standard or enhanced tier.
For standard tier premises, the template is designed to help you prepare and think through the procedures you have in place or may be putting in place. For enhanced tier premises and events, the template includes the additional requirements you need to comply with and can be used to help you document your procedures and measures. There is no requirement for you to use these templates.
We are testing the templates with protective security partners and volunteers from the regulated community. Some volunteers have suggested changes to the draft templates, to help them better explain what they’re doing to improve protective security. Other volunteers described the value of the templates in helping them understand how to comply with the Martyn’s Law. This ongoing engagement is directly shaping the resources we will publish.
Pilot Assessments and Inspections
We have already run a series of pilot assessments and inspections. These have helped us to develop, test and improve the tools we’re creating, and to understand more about the challenges you might face in complying with Martyn’s Law. This work is informing how inspectors can gather information without interfering with the activity on the premises, including the important public safety work of those providing security at events and premises.
Our second round of pilots will begin this autumn and we want to thank everyone who volunteered to be involved. Having attended some of the pilots during the first round, I was really impressed by the willingness and openness of our volunteers to help us develop and refine our approach.
Understanding Principal Use
Some individual premises may have more than one use within the scope of Martyn’s Law – for example, a hall which is hired out for activities and also used as a café. In such cases, responsibility for compliance will sit with whoever controls the premises for their ‘principal use’.
The Home Office has published guidance which provides more detail about how to determine the principal use of such premises.
This only applies to individual premises with multiple uses. You do not need to determine a principal use for sites made up of multiple separate premises that each have a different use.
Notification: Recognising No Two Premises Are the Same
I know many people are keen to understand what the process to notify the SIA will look and feel like in practice. Understandably, you want to know what notification will look like for you - particularly those of you responsible for multiple premises so that you can plan for how you comply.
Martyn’s Law will cover everything from single small venues through to those managing large or complex portfolios. We are working through the different needs you all have to produce supporting guidance about the notification process which supports these differences. Building a notification system that is as simple to use as possible, secure and genuinely works for everyone, regardless of scale, is central to our approach.
The notifications portal will be accessible through GOV.UK which means it will look familiar to those of you who already access government services via the website, such as passport applications or tax returns.
We continue to need more volunteers to help us with the building and testing of this new system in the coming months. The closer we get to the law coming into force, the more volunteers we’ll need.
On that note, I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who has volunteered to help us test our systems so far. Your feedback is shaping how we build these, and it will continue to do so as we move through further phases of testing. If you have yet to register your interest and would like to get involved, you can still sign up.