Staff awareness: what does the law actually require?

Section 5 does not stop at requiring procedures. It requires that they are procedures to be followed by individuals working at the premises — which means the duty is only met when your people actually know them.

This is the part that continues after the writing is done, and it is where most venues will have a gap.

What the duty is

The procedures must be in place, and the people working at the premises must be aware of them and able to follow them.

That is the standard. Note what it does not say:

• It does not require an accredited course.
• It does not require a qualification.
• It does not specify a frequency.
• It does not require you to spend money. The statutory guidance expects standard tier measures to be simple and low cost.

What it does require is that if something happened this afternoon, the people in your building would know what to do — and that you could show you had taken reasonable steps to make that true.

Who counts as "working at the premises"

Everyone who works there, paid or not.

For a commercial venue this is largely the staff list. For the venues most affected by this Act it is wider and more changeable:

• Village hall: the committee, the caretaker, the bar rota, the people who set out chairs.
• Church: clergy, sidespeople, welcomers, vergers, the coffee team, the flower rota.
• School: teaching and support staff, site team, catering, supply staff, regular volunteers.
• Leisure centre: duty managers, reception, instructors, cleaners, contractors on site regularly.

The volunteer population is usually the largest group and the one that turns over fastest. A briefing list from last September may cover half the people who will be in the building this Christmas.

What "aware and able to follow" looks like

A useful test: could this person, without looking anything up, answer four questions?

1. If we have to get out and the usual way is blocked, where do we go?
2. If it is safer to stay inside, which room do we move people to?
3. How do I tell everyone else something is happening?
4. Who decides?

If your people can answer those, you have met the substance of the duty. If they can only find the answers in a folder in the office, you have not.

This is why the procedures should be short and specific — see the four procedures explained. A four-page document that nobody can recall under pressure is not awareness.

How to do it without a budget

For a standard tier venue, proportionate looks like this:

A walk-through. Fifteen minutes at a team meeting, physically walking the routes. Standing in the room you would move people into is worth more than reading about it, because people remember places better than paragraphs.

A one-page summary. The four answers above, on one side of paper. In the staff area, in the hire pack, and given to anyone starting.

Induction. Fold it into whatever you already do for new starters or new volunteers. Venues that bolt it on as a separate task are the ones where it stops happening.

A record. A dated list of who was briefed and on which version.

The record is the part people skip

Two reasons it matters.

It is your evidence. If the SIA asks how you met the awareness duty, "everyone knows" is an assertion. A dated list is an answer.

It tells you who is missing. In a venue with thirty volunteers, nobody can hold in their head who has been briefed since the last update. The register is what surfaces the four people who have not.

You do not need a system for this. A spreadsheet works. The columns that matter are the person, the date, and which version of the procedures — because when you rewrite them, everyone needs briefing again on the new version, and a list without version numbers cannot tell you that.

When to refresh

The Act sets no interval, so use events rather than a calendar:

• A new version of the procedures. Everyone needs re-briefing. This is the important one.
• A change to the building. New layout, new exit, a room taken out of use.
• A new person starting. Part of induction.
• Annually, as a backstop, so it does not quietly lapse in a year when nothing changed.

Where this leads

The procedures are a one-time artifact. Awareness is a perpetual obligation — and it is the half of the duty that a document alone cannot satisfy.

VenueCompliant keeps a staff awareness register alongside your procedures: who has been briefed, on which version, and who still needs it. When you generate a new version, the register shows who has not yet seen it, so the gap is visible rather than assumed.

Start with the scope checker to confirm the duties apply to you.