TER0047

Written evidence submitted by Leatherhead Concert and Arts Society

LCAS holds weekly lunchtime classical concerts in a small local church. Entry is free with funding by donation, Gift Aid, and limited grant funding. Weekly attendance is in the range 30 to 60. Three or four stewards are included in the figures.

Qualifying Public Premises

The church has 80 seats, although it could probably hold 120 maximum. Is this a Qualifying Public Premises?

A Qualifying Public Premises may contain smaller public spaces which should not require registration. Eg, Church + hall creates a QPP, but we only use 80 seat church.

What happens where more than one under-sized space is used for an event which creates a crowd in a town, eg, public consultation, exhibition, festival, election?

The Bill imposes a disproportionate amount of administration on small voluntary cultural and religious groups which operate in spaces that could be deemed to have or be classified as having a far larger capacity than they have seats for.

Despite the capacity, neither the Church community nor LCAS fill the 80 seats. The church only sees over 100 for a big funeral every year or two and when this happens the service is broadcast to an adjacent room.

LCAS must record head count at each concert for the Performing Rights Society and for fire safety. In 12 years of concerts we have never had an audience of 100. Usually 30 to 60 are present.

Registration

Venues have official names as well as locally used names, eg, Town-name Parish Church, The Parish Church of St Mark, Town-name. The Regulator must have authority to maintain a duplicate free database of venues, controlled by use of postcodes. Events must be linked to a registered venue.

Reason: The Companies House database is riddled with duplicate names and incorrect spellings which its staff say they do not have the authority to correct.

The Regulator must inform future event holders by electronic means where there is a problem with a venue’s registration. It must not be possible to attach a forward event to a venue whose registration is under question until the matter is resolved. This will encourage venue managements to resolve matters quickly or lose bookings and revenue.

11, 2, (b) 12-month review is too onerous for all organisations even though the quantity of admin will be proportionate to the size of the activity. 24-month would be reasonable. There is already provision for material change to trigger a review.

The Regulator should define a special category of higher risk venues which require 12-month review. Inspector intelligence may lead this list to change.

11 (4) creates a new profession of costly consultants and advisers. Is there a threshold capacity at which these measures should be applied? 250 or 500 are more serious concentrations of persons at risk which would remove demands on village and small voluntary event organisers. I note that the mean proposal among responses to the public consultation was 303.

Insurance Implications

We are concerned by what could be the response of an insurance provider where a failing of the Premises management or of the Regulator under this Bill impacts on the legitimacy of an organisation’s work in a Qualifying or unregistered Public Premises.

A direction on this point must be contained within the Bill so that small organisations and their directors, managers, committee members and trustees are not left vulnerable.

General Comments

Given the unpredictability of terrorists and the mentally unstable I have always viewed our little church as a vulnerable wide open space. Come in through the main door with your machine gun and kill all the Christians. We are all facing the front, so it will be too late by the time we realise what is occurring. The Minister and the Sound-Man would be taken out first.

This Bill does nothing to change that situation, yet it imposes significant demands on our volunteers which may lead to early retirements and subsequent difficulty replacing volunteers.

Given our existing awareness of risk we would be very pleased to receive official guidance on the measures we might take and to involve trustees in free online training to increase understanding.

There are clearly situations the Bill does not mention and which bring together a greater number of individuals than regular local church services or lunchtime concerts.

I am also aware of small events at sporting venues which attract small numbers of people in stands of far greater capacity.

By focusing on premises rather than assemblies of persons the Bill could be overlooking some high risk crowd situations.

Because a victim’s name is attached to the intended Law we risk producing a regime which imposes duties on people employed or voluntary who have no hope of preventing injury or death to the people they serve.

While I have no doubt the terms of the Bill cold have been even more harsh, I still believe they are excessively onerous for small-scale businesses, charities, voluntary, and public bodies.

Thank you for considering these observations.

June 2023