Legal and regulatory requirements

  • Health and Safety at Work Act 1974: This act places a duty on employers to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees and anyone who may be affected by their activities, such as volunteers, customers, and visitors.
  • Children Act 2004: An essential law to understand, particularly for those looking after children in leisure settings. This act provides the legal basis for how social services and other agencies deal with issues concerning children.
  • Equality Act 2010: This act unifies and extends previous discrimination legislation. It’s crucial for leisure service providers to ensure that no individual or group is discriminated against in accessing services due to their protected characteristics.
  • Data Protection Act 2018/GDPR: These laws regulate how organisations handle personal data. It is important to ensure that customer and employee information is stored and handled lawfully, securely and transparently.
  • Risk assessments: Regular risk assessments can help identify issues which could put the organisation in breach of health and safety legislation.
  • Policy reviews: Regularly reviewing policies to ensure they are up to date with the latest legal and regulatory requirements.
  • Training and communication: All staff should receive regular training and updates on relevant legal and regulatory requirements, ensuring everyone is aware of their responsibilities.
  • Reporting and investigating: Any suspected breaches should be reported immediately and investigated thoroughly.
  • Taking corrective action: Necessary measures should be taken to fix the issue, mitigate the impact, and prevent a recurrence.
  • Reviewing policies and procedures: Post-incident review to update policies and training to prevent the same issue from recurring in the future.
  • Disciplinary processes: In some specific cases, breaches could lead to disciplinary actions against staff involved in the incident. The actions taken should adhere to the organisation’s disciplinary policy and procedures.