Martyn's Law

Has anything be said in the act about liability of an individual if it is felt by aggrieved relatives of any victim that said (volunteer?) did not follow the laid down process.
Would "being suspicious" of a person who is perhaps not usual clientele lead to issues? When we had to work in the terminals at LHR if someone looked suspicious you just found the nearest guy with a H &K slung across his body and let him deal with it. Not many police around Heritage Railways.

 

Perhaps you could read the Home Office guidance and see what it actually says?

 

It's probably just the same as any other situation in which a volunteer (or a paid member if staff) is negligent. The railway could be liable vicariously for such negligence. If it's incorporrated in some form the railway entity itself would bear that liability. If not it would be the personal liability of each trustee/committee member.
The exception would be where the failure of the individual is so egregious as to amount to criminal negligence. In that event the volunteer or employee could be prosecuted and, if found guilty, fined or imprisoned. The new law will create a statutory duty which is principally binding on the railway entity, its directors and/or trustees. Failure to implement appropriate security measures could result in them being personally liable for breach of that duty.

 

Did not see it covered any of the issues I raised.
Whilst I agree with you the intention may be good a lot of scope for those who "initially identify a potential threat" whoever they are, to be accused of bias or racial profiling. Not much point in training everyone if you do not expect them to act when they see something.

 

Thank you, that's a very useful post. That concession (once on a train they don't count to the station total) probably saves quite a bit of hassle. I was just discussing with a colleague about Kidderminster and can think of a few ocassions where the 800 figure could be tripped if the on-train numbers counted.

 

I should say straight away that I am not a lawyer, so this is an interpetation, not a legal judgement. I also admit I have not read the legislation at all, but I have read the guidance.

I wonder if some of the statements being put around about what we will have to do are actually over blown. From reading the guidance on the gov.uk website, it does seem to me that there is rather more flexibility in response than is being implied.

Firstly, it seems the requirement is about having a response plan for a terrorist incident. That's fair enough, it doesn't seem too different in scope from having e.g. a fire response plan, except that generally in a fire you are trying to get people off the premises, and in a terrorist incident you might be trying to keep them in while you barricade the potential threat out! Any railway worth its salt will have considered a number of plausible emergency scenarios (fire in building, fire on train, passenger taken ill etc) and drawn up a response plan. So now we just have a new scenario to consider - imminent or ongoing terrorist attack - and we need a response plan.

The guidance states that the plan should be "appropriate and reasonably practicable". The reasonably practicable needs to be justified, but reasons why a very heavy-handed approach may not be practicable might be if it was too expensive to implement, or required staff resources beyond what you have etc.

The plan needs to cover four areas:

• evacuation: the process of getting people safely out of the premises
• invacuation: The process of bringing people safely into, or to safer parts of, the premises
• lockdown: the process of securing the premises to prevent individuals entering or leaving the premises, e.g. to restrict or prevent entry by an attacker by locking doors, closing shutters or using available barriers
• communication: the process of alerting people on the premises to the danger, e.g. providing instructions to remain in place or move away from any danger.

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So step 1 is you devise a plan, and you make that plan appropriate and reasonably practicable. No-one is saying you suddenly need to install magic lifting bollards at the end of your station approach - you may just have a mechanism to lock doors and gates, and make sure that it is known how and when to lockdown. Indeed the guidance is very specific on that point:

When considering the procedures in place, the responsible person needs to consider what is appropriate and reasonably practicable for their premises. This will involve consideration of the nature of the premises and resources available. The Act does not require physical alterations or the purchase of equipment for the purpose of having these procedures in place.​

There has been a lot made on this thread about the need for "compulsory training on terrorism protection measures". I can't see anywhere in the guidance the mandates that. What I can see needing to happen is that a subset of volunteers need to know what the response plan is, and how and when to implement it.

Procedures should be communicated to all those who need to be aware of them, i.e. the people who must implement them effectively in response to a suspected incident.​

That statement is very clear: the people who need to be trained are those who will be involved in implementing the response plan. For example in our case, I can imagine that that means we might need to train our Duty Operating Supervisors and perhaps senior station staff on the plan, so that they could, quickly and efficiently, implement the plan if required. But I can't see any justification, nor any mandate in the guidance, for requiring all volunteers to be trained in terrorism response. What benefit is there of making a member of footplate crew, or a p/way gang member, or someone who tends the gardens, undertake such training? If they have no role in the response plan, I can't see they have any need to undertake mandatory training. That is in line with everything else on the railway: we don't train the line side team in boiler management, and we don't train footplate crew in how to use a chainsaw.

I think there is a big danger here of trying to gold plate a response when there is no requirement to do so, and in a sector that can hardly afford tin plate, let alone gold. My reading is that a heritage railway can comply with a mixture of common sense and some very basic, and limited, training: do a site survey; devise a plan of how you could lockdown the site and the circumstances in which you would do so; communicate that plan to a small number of staff (paid or volunteer) who would be responsible for implementing it. Anything else seems disproportionate given the guidance very clearly allows proportionality of response. Let's not allow the HRA to sleepwalk the sector into a bureacratic and expensive mess when no-one is requiring that we do so.

Tom

 

The important thing there is to ensure that a member of staff who is trained is available when required.

 

Yes. In our case, I could see that the minimum might be that the duty OS, and maybe the Senior Station Master at each of four stations (though more realistically only three of them) might need training. You'd have a station-specific plan at each station. So on any one day perhaps 4-5 people across the railway would need to know how to implement the plan at their station; and given that over the course of the year those people rotate, perhaps a training requirement for around 20-25 or so people - which is a long way from compulsory training for our 700+ volunteers.

Tom

 

I was chatting to a volunteer from one of relatively local heritage lines about this last week, the paid staff and regular operational volunteers have had a briefing about what is required of them as the railway entity, and what this means to the volunteers and paid staff.

Broadly it covered;
- An assessment of how high a threat they feel their venue and events are.
- How they could isolate certain areas of the site to keep someone in, or indeed out.
- That there are some information posters going in staff and volunteer areas to show how this could be carried out.
- How staff should identify threats to the RO for the day.

I haven't read all the documentation fully as of yet, but it strikes me that there is a lot of overlap with what should *already* be in place for fire evacuation, and procedurally for if somebody was to be badly injured on site- getting help in a timely fashion. Also, to some extent what should be in place for safeguarding.

It only seems to be an extension of a site risk assesment in most cases for smaller events and venues- not mega onerous.


Edit;

I would also add;
A venue that I work at regularly which hosts fairly large events has had all this stuff in place for at least 5 years that I know of- again done as part of the risk assesment for the site anyway.

The particular venue is complex in so far as there are multiple areas with public access, and some of the activities undertaken on site are quite remote from the "main" building.

Key there is communication- all staff have access to radios and there are particular protocols for different occurrences.

there's no real excuse for not having some sort of a plan.

 

Thank you for this analysis. Again, from a church perspective, I'm sadly familiar with these. As a parent, I've had to be advised of measures taken to protect the choir during rehearsals because of intruders and the risk they've posed to those in the building. As a volunteer, I'm aware of some of the measures that may be followed - and the implementation of Martyn's Law means that we will need to refresh our understanding of these.

Knowing our congregation and volunteers, telling them "we're doing anti-terrorism training because of Martyn's Law" will scare them. Telling them "we've revised our risk assessments and you should know xyz in case we have an intruder", and we'll get good buy-in.

Good leaders will manage that increased responsibility calmly and efficiently. Those who panic people will make work for themselves and others, and achieve very little.

It may be my professional background, but it puts me in mind of GDPR - something seemingly massive, but 99% common sense and reasonable.

 

All that is true at the 200 plus people likely to be present level. No one, as far as I'm aware, suggested that all staff and volunteers must be trained. The shorthand description was "front facing staff" i.e. those would normally be expected to deal with control of people on the site in the event, for instance, of a fire or other emergency. The key difference btween the 200 plus and 800 plus levels is the former focusses on protection of people. The latter focusses on protection of premises as well and may well require physical modifications and the installation of security equipment. That's why it was so valuable to secure the confirmation that numbers would be calculated station by station and not for the entire railway.

 

Indeed, and those clarifications are important. But looking briefly at the guidance for the Enhanced Duty requirements (i.e. 800+), the examples given are predominantly about people and processes, and undergirded by the principles of ALARP - "Ultimately, what is appropriate and reasonably practicable will be a consideration at each of the individual premises or event in scope. The particular procedures and measures in place at one location may not be appropriate and reasonably practicable at another."

I fully support taking these seriously, but am uneasy at a tone that emphasises the potential worst case scenarios and so makes the fear of engaging greater. The example of a 1200 seat theatre, for example, comes across as nothing that I wouldn't already expect (trained staff, control of the doors, bag checks) if going to the theatre at any time in the last 20 years.

This reminds me of a discussion on the use of door locks and restricting windows on preserved lines. No one disputes the need for effective management, but establishing a workable definition of proportionality and ALARP needs proper engagement.

In which vein, I'm reminded of the story my wife tells of when she audited a UN organisation in London, and they told of undergoing fire inspection. One year, the inspector wanted all of the doors on closers and the direction of opening reversed despite significant H&S and ventilation issues. Despite a UN policy of compliance with local legislation, the discussion became quite robust until the inspector eventually realised that the word "must" would not apply. The next year, a different inspector visited and was entirely happy with the set up.