Managing health and safety at your church

Keeping all those involved with your church and its activities safe is very important. You may also have to comply with health and safety law, including Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005. This applies to any organisation, including a church.

If you are an employer, you may need to:

• appoint someone to provide competent assistance to help meet your obligations
• write a safety statement 
• complete risk assessments to identify precautions you need to take 
• provide training and information for employees 
• provide first-aid equipment and implement procedures for dealing with an accident
• check that your precautions remain adequate
• keep records of what you have done
• keep up-to-date with any changes.

Even if do not have employees certain aspects of the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005 may still apply or you may have to comply with other related law. For example, if you control non-domestic premises e.g. a church hall, you will need to ensure that the premises are safe, including any plant or equipment there. Another example could be where you have construction or refurbishment work completed at your church. Here, you may have specific responsibilities to meet. 

You should also remember that if you own or control premises, you may still have to complete detailed risk assessments for certain hazards (e.g. asbestos, fire).

To help you decide, why not work through our self-assessment How safe is your church and church hall? This will identify some of the steps you might need to take to manage health and safety properly. It will also pinpoint some of the more common hazards where further action may be necessary.