Duty, Policy and Residual Risk

For the named organiser who writes the health and safety policy and accepts, in writing, the risk that remains after it.

What you will be able to do

• List each law that applies to the policy, the nation it applies in and whether it is in force.
• Produce evidence of each licence and competence the organisation still needs, or record the gap.
• Show, with a cited source, where a policy existed on paper and staff worked from a different document.
• Write a page staff can open on site that names who may stop work and who may take a live safety decision.
• Accept in writing the risk that remains, without turning the acceptance into a release from the duty.

What the chapters cover

• Identifying the employer, the organiser and others in control of premises
• Writing a policy staff can use on site and find in the event file
• Specifying competence without inventing staff ratios
• Recording Safety Advisory Group advice and licensing conditions
• Which duties stay with you and which tasks you can give
• The policy paper and the residual risk statement

Thirteen chapters run from who holds the duty to the signed residual-risk statement, with thirteen quick-reference cards you may copy for use at your own event. Worked examples are composite illustrations, not accounts of real events.

Strategic titles are for the named organiser who designs the system across an event or a season and signs the risk that remains. OTAS Live publishes 30 handbooks across ten areas of event work, each at Operational, Tactical and Strategic level.

UK law, nation by nation

Law as checked in September 2026, with England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland named separately.