Safety certificate checklist
Ensuring reasonable safety at a sports ground involves considering the risks of physical injury or harm for all people present at a sports ground. This includes risks from crowd disorder or anti-social behaviour or terrorist activity. It also means ensuring that all people at a sports ground are protected, not just spectators. This is likely to be best achieved by the certifying authority including conditions within the safety certificate.
Local authorities may wish to consider the following when checking their safety certificate for possible changes:
Risk Based Certificates
- Does the certificate include a list of documents to be included in the Operations Manual?
- If so, has the Spectator Safety Policy been renamed the Event Safety Policy?
- If you are intending to issue a condition in relation to the need for a Crowd Disorder and Anti-Social Behaviour Plan or a Counter Terrorism Plan, has the list been adjusted to include these plans?
- Have wording adjustments required by the new understanding of safety at sports grounds been made throughout the document?
- For instance, consider changing the word ‘spectators’, where appropriate, to other more generic terms. As examples:
- “spectators admitted to” could be changed to “people present at”
- “the safety of spectators at…” could be changed to “safety at”
- “spectators and employees” could be changed to “those present at the ground”
- “spectators at the sports ground” could be changed to “those at the sports ground”.
- For instance, consider changing the word ‘spectators’, where appropriate, to other more generic terms. As examples:
- The Spectator Safety Policy should become the Event Safety Policy throughout the document.
- Do you intend to condition the requirement for an anti-social behaviour plan? If so, you may wish to consider wording similar to that below:
The Holder shall assess in writing, the risk of crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour which may cause physical harm or injury occurring at the ground and shall develop a written plan to deal with such risks. The written plan shall be produced following consultation with the Police. The Holder shall set out the written crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour plan in the Operations Manual a copy of which is at Appendix 1 to this certificate. The plans shall be reviewed annually, after any incident, near miss or exercise.
- Do you intend to condition the requirement for a counter terrorism plan? If so, you may wish to consider wording similar to that below:
- The Holder shall assess in writing, the risk of a terrorist incident occurring at the ground which may cause physical harm or injury and shall develop a written plan to deal with such risks. The written plan shall be produced following consultation with the Police. The Holder shall set out the written counter terrorism plan as a confidential document linked to the Operations Manual. The local authority shall be provided with access to the plan, as appropriate. The plans shall be reviewed annually, after any incident, near miss or exercise.
Prescriptive Certificates
- Have incidental wording adjustments been made throughout the document?
- For instance, consider changing the word ‘spectators’, where appropriate, to other more generic terms. As examples
- “spectators admitted to” could be changed to “people present at”
- “the safety of spectators at…” could be changed to “safety at”
- “spectators and employees” could be changed to “those present at the ground”
- “spectators at the sports ground” could be changed to “those at the sports ground”.
- The Spectator Safety Policy should become the Event Safety Policy throughout the document.
- For instance, consider changing the word ‘spectators’, where appropriate, to other more generic terms. As examples
- Do you intend to condition the requirement for an anti-social behaviour plan? If so, you may wish to consider wording similar to below:
The Holder shall produce a crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour plan(s) and shall assess in writing the risk of incidents of crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour which might cause physical harm or injury. The plan(s) shall be produced in consultation with the Police and a copy shall be kept with the Safety Certificate. The crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour plan(s) of action shall cover all reasonably foreseeable risks. As a minimum, the plan(s) should:
- identify the types of crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour likely to result in harm or injury to those present at the ground;
- explain the ground’s objectives and the means of achieving them.
- identify who has responsibility for dealing with matters of crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour at the ground;
- identify who will be actioning the plan;
- outline the chain of command in relation to these matters;
- clarify matters of primacy when police are at the ground during an event;
- describe how perpetrators are identified and reported or handed over to the police;
- describe the collection and preservation of evidence and witness identification;
- describe how and when police are to be contacted for any of these matters when they are not on site;
- Outline responses to particular types of crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour.
- The Holder shall regularly review, test and keep up to date the crowd disorder and anti-social behaviour plan and shall forward a copy to the Council.
- Do you intend to condition the requirement for a counter terrorism plan? If so, you may wish to consider wording similar to that below:
The Holder shall produce a plan to counter the risk of terrorist attack or other action. The counter terrorism plan shall be produced following a written risk assessment process and consultation with the Police. A copy of the counter terrorism plan shall be kept by the ground as a confidential document. The local authority shall be provided with access to the plan, as appropriate. The counter terrorism plan shall consider all reasonable prevention techniques to reasonably foreseeable terrorist attack methods and include plans to deal with aftermath of an attack.