Who is the "responsible person" under Martyn's Law?

The Act does not place its duties on "the venue" in the abstract. It places them on a responsible person for each qualifying premises. Working out who that is takes about five minutes, and it is worth doing early, because almost every failure to comply starts with nobody being sure it was theirs.

The test: who controls the premises

Section 4 defines the responsible person by control of the premises. In most cases that is the person or body who decides how the building is used, who can enter it, and what happens in it day to day.

Some common cases:

Premises	Usually the responsible person
Village hall run by a trust	The trustee body
Parish church	The PCC, or incumbent and churchwardens, depending on structure
Maintained school	The governing body
Academy	The trust
Leisure centre run by a contractor	The operator, not the council that owns the freehold
Independent shop	The business operating it
Community centre owned by a council but run by a committee	Usually the committee, if it genuinely controls use

The recurring theme is that ownership and control are not the same thing. A council that owns a building but has contracted its operation to someone else has generally not retained the control that the duty follows.

The responsible person can be an organisation

This surprises people, but the responsible person is frequently a body rather than an individual — a trust, a PCC, a governing body, a company.

At enhanced tier, section 10 requires that where the responsible person is a body, a named senior individual must be designated to take responsibility for that body meeting its duties.

At standard tier there is no such requirement. But naming someone anyway is the single most useful thing a committee can do, because "the trustees" is a body and a body does not remember to do things. Minute the name. It costs nothing and it is why some halls have procedures and others have a good intention.

Hired and shared buildings

Hiring out. If you hire your hall to a birthday party, a yoga class or a community group, the duty normally stays with you. You have control of the premises; they have a booking. A clause in the hire agreement does not transfer a statutory duty.

What that means in practice is that you should brief hirers — a one-page summary in the hire pack, acknowledged at booking — while understanding that the duty remains yours.

Sharing. Where two organisations genuinely share control — a church and a separately constituted hall committee, a building split between two tenants — each may have duties in relation to what it controls.

The failure mode in shared buildings is symmetrical assumption: each party believes the other has it. Agree it in writing. A short exchange of emails recording who is doing what is worth more than either party's private confidence.

Changes of hands

The duty follows control, so it moves when control moves.

A new operator becomes the responsible person and must notify the SIA in their own right — the previous operator's notification does not carry over. Handing over the existing procedures is good practice and means the new operator is not starting from a blank page. If you sell, lease or transfer a venue, put the procedures in the handover pack.

Notifying the SIA

Notification is one of the two standard tier duties, alongside having the procedures in place.

Section 9 sets the notification requirements, with the detail in regulations. The portal opens in spring 2027, in the same window as enforcement.

Two practical points:

• You cannot do it yet. Nobody can. Any service offering to notify the SIA on your behalf today is offering something that does not exist.
• Expect congestion. A large number of premises will be notifying at once when it opens. Having your capacity figure and your procedures ready beforehand means notification is a form-filling exercise rather than the start of the work.

What to do today

1. Decide who has control. For most organisations this is a five-minute conversation.
2. Write it down — minute it, if you have a committee.
3. Name someone to lead, even at standard tier where the Act does not require it.
4. If the building is shared, agree the split in writing with the other party.
5. Put a note in the handover pack so the next operator inherits the position rather than rediscovering it.

Then get the substantive work done: the four procedures and staff awareness.

If you are not yet sure whether any of this applies, the scope checker will tell you in about two minutes.