RRO and charities

[Ashley Wood]

Can anyone offer any guide on the following?

A village hall rents space to a pre-school playgroup that is a registered charity. As there are paid members of staff and volunteers not to mention the little darlings! who is responsible for ensuring a fire risk assessment is carried out in accordance with the RRO. The hall presumably will already hold a fire certificate as they hold public functions etc there.

Any advice welcome.

Ashley Wood

[kurnal]

When the RRO does come into force the  secretary or other nominated official of the village hall committee will be  the responsible person and must carry out a risk assessment, co-ordinate and  communicate the significant findings to the hirers.  Then the  hirers will be temporary reponsible persons and the playgroup committee will have the duty to co-operate, communicate and review the village hall risk assessment and consider whether their use or activities require a review of the assessment, which would then be their responsibility, the outcome of which again need to be communicated to other users of the hall who may be there at the same time.

[dave bev]

would that information also be relevant for all (abbreviated to f'all for puproses best known only to myself!)?

dave bev

[jayjay]

Other points to consider are
1 the village hall will not have a fire certificate as it is not being put to a designated use.
2. The hall may have had an entertainment licence but reforms to the Licensing Act changed this and fire safety issues can now only be addressed by a fire risk assessment.
3. If there were no employed persons then currently a fire risk assessement
is not a statutory requirement.

Nothing is as simple as it first seems.

[Ashley Wood]

Thank you all for your advice.

[dave bev]

ash, speak to your local fire station or contact suffolk hq - number is in the book - they will be pleased to help and offer any advice they can

dave bev