Martyn's Law for places of worship

Places of worship occupy a specific position in Martyn's Law, and it is worth understanding it clearly because it removes the largest worry straight away.

You are always standard tier

Whatever your capacity.

A parish church that seats 180 on a good Sunday and 400 at Christmas is standard tier. A cathedral seating 1,200 is standard tier. A large mosque at Eid, a synagogue at the High Holy Days, a temple at Diwali — all standard tier.

This is a deliberate carve-out. Places of worship are open by nature, usually run substantially by volunteers, and Parliament took the view that imposing the enhanced tier duties — public protection measures, a designated senior individual, a compliance document filed with the regulator — would be disproportionate.

So the whole of enhanced tier does not apply to you. What remains is genuinely modest.

Are you in scope at all?

You are in scope if 200 or more people could reasonably be expected to be present at once.

The mistake places of worship make is assessing this on an ordinary Sunday. The test is the busiest realistic occasion, and for most congregations that is not a normal service. Consider:

• Festivals. Christmas, Easter, Eid, Diwali, the High Holy Days.
• Funerals and weddings. A large funeral can fill a building that is never otherwise full.
• Hires and community use. If a group booking your hall would bring more than 200, that counts — the building is in scope even if your own congregation never approaches it.
• Concerts and school events. Many churches host both.

Count staff and volunteers as well as the congregation. How to count your venue capacity sets out the six ways the Home Office accepts for evidencing the figure.

The open door problem

This is the genuine difficulty, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a reassuring one.

A church open all day for private prayer, with nobody on the door, cannot control who enters. Neither can a mosque at prayer times. The procedures are not written on the assumption that you can.

What the duty asks is what your people do when something happens. That is answerable even in an open building:

• Who notices, and who do they tell? In a building with no staff on duty this may be whoever is on the welcome rota.
• Where do you move people to? Almost every place of worship has a vestry, a side chapel, a hall or an office that is away from the main entrance and has a door.
• Which doors close, and who has the keys? Often the honest answer is that one person has them. That is worth knowing before an incident rather than during one.
• How do you tell a congregation mid-service? Agreeing a form of words in advance matters more here than almost anywhere, because interrupting worship is socially difficult and people hesitate.

Volunteers are "people working at the premises"

The awareness duty in section 5 covers the people working at the premises, and it does not distinguish paid from unpaid.

For most places of worship that means sidespeople, welcomers, vergers, the flower rota, the coffee team and the choir — not only clergy. That is a larger and more changeable group than most congregations first assume, and it is where the practical work sits.

Keeping a simple record of who has been briefed and when is the part that continues after the procedures are written. Staff awareness: what the law actually requires covers what is proportionate.

Buildings that do several jobs

Many places of worship are also community venues — a hall used by a nursery in the week, a scout group on Fridays, a polling station in May.

Two points:

Your tier does not change. You remain standard tier because of what the building is, not what it is used for on a Tuesday.

Your capacity might. If a hirer regularly brings more people than your congregation does, that is the figure that puts you in scope.

If a nursery or school uses the building, note that childcare and educational premises are also always standard tier — so nothing changes there either.

What to do first

1. Work out your busiest realistic figure, including festivals and hires, and write down where the number came from.
2. Name the responsible person — commonly the PCC or its equivalent — and minute it. Your diocese or denominational body may have guidance; several have published some.
3. Walk the building and answer four questions: second way out, room to move people into, doors that lock, who holds keys.
4. Write the four procedures around those answers.
5. Brief the rotas, and keep a note of who and when.

The scope checker will confirm your position in about two minutes, including the always-standard-tier rule, and will tell you plainly if you are out of scope.