There is no doubt that Protect Duty, which was unveiled by the Home Secretary Priti Patel this year, will bring huge changes to our industry and the way venues and events organisers go about their business.
But what is it? And what will it mean?
In a nutshell, Protect Duty is the planned new legal requirement that aims to make venue owners and event organisers responsible for keeping people safe from terrorist attacks.
Making venues responsible for security
Currently, apart from at some sports grounds or on public transport, there is no requirement for anyone to take any steps to prevent such incidents, whether by installing security measures such as HVM barriers, having an action plan or giving specific training.
However, in the wake of the suicide attack at the Manchester Arena in 2017, when 23 people died after attending an Ariana Grande concert, this is about to change.
Following a campaign by Figen Murray, whose son Martyn died in the incident, the Government is now seeking to introduce new laws that will make is an offence not to take preventative action or know what to do should an attack take place.
Hence, a Protect Duty – a duty to protect.
At the time of writing, the Government has just emerged from a consultation phase where a host of relevant organisations and stakeholders gave widespread support to the introduction of Protect Duty.
Enshrining safety in law
For many, the laws could mean that much of what they do already – and may have put in place following the Manchester attack – is merely enshrined in law.
For others, it will mean that the matter of public safety, and proactively understanding how vulnerable their venue or event is to an attack, is placed at the top of their to-do list.
The Government accepts that it does not want to add to the cost of hosting events, but that financial considerations have to be balanced with the need to save lives.
Measures can help crime too
As it happened, the majority of people who took part in the consultation welcomed the chance to learn about security and what measures they could take.
And it should be noted that measures that are put in place to prevent a terrorist attack can equally prevent criminal acts and vice versa, meaning that a physical safety audit can have a range of benefits.
Plus, the measures don’t have to be expensive – specialist physical security products are likely to be installed at only larger sites – and prevention is being seen as a combination of physical and behavioural interventions “deployed in a complementary manner”.
In addition, the consultation said that it would be the size of the venue or event that would determine who needed to do what, and that it’s reasonable to set the bar at venues capable of holding 100 people or more.
And so, a large entertainment arena is in, a small independent cinema is not.
The consultation document also states that many large organisations – those which employ 250 or more – which operate at publicly accessible locations and have staff capable of taking responsibility for enacting a company policy, could be liable, as could organisations with multiple premises where there is regular public footfall, such as chains of betting shops, petrol stations and chemists.
Making outdoor events safer
And while outdoor events in public places attended by more than 100 people are definitely included in the Protect Duty framework, the Government has also considered the question of other outdoor public places.
These include parks, city centre squares and pavements on bridges, all of which have witnessed acts of terrorism and are vulnerable to low sophistication attacks using knives or vehicles, which it feels could be subject to appropriate security measures.
In short, Protect Duty is like a fire safety risk assessment whose key objective is to drive forward an improved culture of security where owners and operators understand the potential threats, the level of danger and can implement reasonable, proportionate and co-ordinated security measures in response.
That’s the plan anyhow. Now that it has undergone its consultation phase but is entering its legislation phase there will doubtless be many changes, but the upshot is that Protect Duty will make organisers of events take security more seriously, which can only be a good thing.
