What the venue asks for before it says yes

Two documents decide whether a hall says yes, and neither of them is a plan.

A certificate showing that you hold public liability insurance. And their risk assessment form, on their paper, filled in by you.

Both are within reach of a group that has no bank account, no constitution and no sponsor. None of what follows needs a committee’s approval. It needs somebody’s afternoon.

Written for England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland run parts of this differently, and the two places that matters most are flagged where they arise.

How long this really is, before you promise anybody a date. Your own time at the desk is about two hours, and it is the smallest part. The calendar is the big one. One London borough wants a small event’s application thirteen weeks ahead. A community bank account can take several weeks and sometimes a couple of months, and the constitution the bank asks for has to be written before that starts. So the honest planning figure for a first booked event is a quarter, not an evening, and the two hours below are what you do on the first day of it. Nothing here is hard. It is only slow, and it is slow in a way that is invisible until you have named a date you then have to move.

One warning before the practical part, because it is the thing nobody tells volunteers. If your group is unincorporated, meaning you never registered it as anything, it is not a legal person and cannot sign. The name on the hire agreement is a human being’s. GOV.UK puts it plainly: individual members are personally responsible for any debts and contractual obligations.

The certificate

Public liability insurance is not a legal requirement. NCVO says so directly. It covers claims made against you by other people for injury, illness, loss or damage caused by your group’s negligence.

Every venue asks for it anyway, and the reason sits in their paperwork rather than in any statute. Their hire agreement makes you indemnify them. An indemnity from a group with no money is worth little on its own, so they want the certificate standing behind it.

How much cover. Five million pounds is the usual figure. Blackpool asks for £5m. East Devon asks for £5m for an event under 250 people, and £10m for large events on water. The venue sets the number, so read their form before you buy.

Employers’ liability is a separate purchase. Employees must be insured under it, and NCVO states there is no duty to insure volunteers.

Read “employee” wider than you are about to. It is not only somebody on a payroll. If you pay the sound engineer a hundred and fifty in cash for the afternoon, or a first aider, or door staff, you may have brought yourself inside this. In Great Britain the cover is compulsory where it applies and the penalty for going without is a daily fine rather than a claim you might never face. So the question is not whether you have staff. It is whether anybody is being paid for anything, and if the answer is yes, ask the insurer before you book them.

Three routes, and roughly what each costs

The prices below were checked on 2 August 2026. Each is an entry level premium advertised by one provider, not a quote for your group.

Somebody else’s policy, which is the cheapest route and the one people miss. A synagogue, a national body you are affiliated to, a local council for voluntary service. The Wildlife Trusts put the test well. Another organisation’s insurance might already cover you. It is up to you to check, and they will ask to see your risk assessment.

Ask in one email, and get the answer in writing with your date in it.

“We’re running a vigil in the square on Sunday 15 March, about sixty people. Are we covered under your public liability policy for that, and could you confirm by email?”

An annual policy. Zurich sells an online product for not-for-profits with an annual income up to £100,000, from £56 a year. Public liability of £2,000,000 comes as standard on it. Raising it to £5,000,000 costs extra, and £5,000,000 is what the council asked for.

A one-off event policy. Event Insurance Services advertise one day cover from £62 for an event with up to 100 visitors. Run one thing a year and this is usually the answer. Run four and it stops being.

Where this backfires: asking in writing can produce a no from a committee that had never considered the question. Ask anyway. A discretion nobody has exercised is not cover.

What the hall’s own cover does not do

The venue insures the venue. Blackpool Council says it in one line. Your event cannot be covered by the council’s insurance, because the council can only legally insure its own activities.

Village halls work the same way, with one door left open. The widely used model hiring agreement has the hall insuring its own liabilities. It then has you indemnifying the hall against claims arising from your use of the premises. Some halls do extend cover to non-commercial hirers at their discretion, which is a favour in a clause rather than a default.

So ask this first.

“Does your policy cover us as hirers, or do we need our own public liability? Whichever it is, could you put it in an email?”

Their form is not your grid

The four column grid in risk and safety planning is the thinking, and it is better than most of what gets filed. It is not what the council asked for.

Their form is a record, in the shape their insurer and their officers recognise. That shape comes from the Health and Safety Executive steps that nearly every council reproduces. Identify the hazards, decide who might be harmed and how, control the risks, record what you found, review it.

Your grid already holds four fifths of that. Move it across like this.

Your column	Their box	What goes in it
What could go wrong	Hazard	The thing, not the outcome. “Crowd on an unlit path”, never “somebody falls”
How likely, and how bad and for whom	Who might be harmed, and how	Name the people. Public, stewards, children, our own members
What we will do, decided now	Control measures already in place	What you have already arranged, written as done
The rows where the fourth column is still a plan	Further action needed, by whom, by when	A name and a date. This is the box they read for intent
Nothing in your grid	Assessed by, date, review date	Your name, today’s date, and a date before the event

The last row is the one they check first. A form with no name and no date at the bottom comes back to you, and the week you lose is the week you needed.

A control you write down and then do not put in place is worse than a blank. It is a record, in your own hand, that you saw the hazard. Follow the row or change the row.

And the honest part about whether you have to do this at all. Health and safety legislation applies where an organisation has at least one employee, and the duty to record significant findings starts at five. A volunteer group with no staff sits outside both. You still owe a duty of care at common law to anybody affected by what you do. And the venue asks for the form as a condition of hire.

So it is a booking condition and a piece of evidence, rather than a duty the law puts on you. That is a better reason to do it properly than a rule would be.

Booking: notice, deposit, and whose name

Read the warning at the top of this page again, because this is where it applies.

Notice is longer than you expect. Bexley wants a small event application, meaning up to 499 people a day, thirteen weeks ahead. Every council sets its own period. Find yours today rather than trusting that one.

There is usually a deposit. Bexley charges £250 for a site under half a hectare and £500 for up to two, held against reinstatement. A village hall may ask for a hundred pound cheque as surety where alcohol is served.

Cancellation costs money on a sliding scale. One village hall agreement charges nothing four weeks out, half inside four weeks, and the full fee inside one. Yours will hold its own numbers. Find them before you name a date you might have to move.

And the signature. The model village hall wording has the hirer accepting responsibility for being in charge of the premises whenever the public are present. The same clause says the hirer is not a person under 18.

That is an individual, not a group. If yours is unincorporated there is nobody else it could be.

Three things to settle, in the minutes, before anybody signs.

• Name who signs, and say out loud that it is their name and not the group’s.
• Record that the group will meet any cost arising from the booking. That is a commitment between you rather than a legal shield.
• Once the sums outgrow a deposit, ask about incorporating. A local council for voluntary service is the kind of body that answers that for free.

Money, at the level a first chair needs

What the whole year costs, itemised, plus the treasurer’s job and the grant question, are in money, for a group with no money.

Do you need a constitution to open a bank account? In practice, yes. Banks ask for a governing document, and for an unincorporated group that means a constitution. The name, what the group is for, who its members are. Then how the committee is chosen, how money is handled, and how it winds up. Writing one is an evening’s work. It registers you with nobody and it does not make the group a legal person.

Start it early. The Resource Centre warns that opening a community group account can take several weeks or even a few months. That sentence is what ruins a March event planned in February.

Three signatories, any two to approve. Set the account up so that two people are required to sign a cheque or approve a withdrawal. Name three, so one person’s illness cannot freeze it. This protects the treasurer more than the group, and that is how to explain it to whoever hesitates.

Cash from a bucket. Two people count it on the site, write the total down and both sign the note before it moves. Bank it as one identifiable payment. Then the treasurer never has to remember anything.

The one part of this that is law. In England and Wales, collecting money in a street or public place for charitable or other purposes needs a permit. It comes from section 5 of the Police, Factories, &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1916, and it covers selling articles as well. GOV.UK gives a shop doorway and a car park as public places that count. In Greater London outside the City you apply to the Metropolitan Police rather than to the council.

Collecting without a permit can cost a £200 fine.

Whether you need one turns on the regulations your own council has made. That is why GOV.UK says you might need it rather than that you do. So ask them, and ask early enough that the answer can still change your plan.

In Scotland the equivalent is permission from the local authority under section 119 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. It is applied for in writing a month ahead, and collections at public meetings are exempt. Northern Ireland differs again, and the council is the body to ask.

The folder, and the order to build it in

Fill in the blanks179 words

Four things go in it. The certificate, their completed form, the signed hire agreement, and a receipt for the deposit. Build it in that order, because their form asks who insures you and the agreement asks for both.

If it is the next working day, then I will download the venue’s booking pack and their risk assessment form before I ask anybody about a date.

If their form is open in front of me, then I will email the venue the one question about whose policy covers whom, and buy no insurance until that answer is in writing.

If the answer is that we need our own cover, then I will get a quote that evening for the exact figure their form demands, not the standard figure a policy arrives with.

And the obstacle to expect is the bank. If the account is weeks away and the deposit falls due, then I will ask the venue whether the date can be held unpaid, and name in the minutes who is paying it personally and what they are owed back.