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Many private clubs provide employment, either in connection with their main activities or as a sideline. Others are run by members, on a voluntary basis. Where there is employment, Sections 2 and 3 of the HSWA place duties on the employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of his employees and other persons who may be affected by the undertaking.
Section 4 protects those who are not employees in certain specified circumstances. It places duties on persons in control of non-domestic premises where those premises are made available to people as a place of work or where people may use plant or substances provided there for their use.
Reasonable measures must be taken by those in control to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the premises and any plant or substance in the premises, or provided for use there, are safe and without risks to health.
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA) is not used to cut across the freedom of individuals voluntarily to take risks outside their working environment. Where there is no employment, there will be no intervention by the enforcing authority in the sporting or other activities of private clubs, except in reaction to serious incidents or follow-up of complaints.
Where there are known to be employed or self-employed persons working in a private club, plans for any preventive inspection should be based solely on the risks arising from the employment activities, e.g. in the restaurant of a sailing club's premises or work undertaken by instructors; and should not take account of other risks club members or their invited guests choose to take, e.g. in racing dinghies on the open sea.
The general principles set out above need to be qualified where members of the public who are not club members, or their invited guests, are put at risk by the club's activities. For example, some ostensibly private clubs offer their facilities for use by non-members under short-term membership arrangements. Some have 'open days' where large numbers of the public are admitted to view the facilities or as spectators of club competitions, etc. In considering whether preventive inspection under the HSWA is appropriate in the circumstances, an enforcing authority would take account of the nature and extent of the risks and the degree of control which the club can be expected to exercise, and whether there is any other legislation which offers a more appropriate basis for enforcement.
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