Martyn's Law is a proposed piece of legislation to better protect the British public from terrorism in any place or space to which they have access. Figen Murray, mother of Martyn Hett who tragically died along with 22 others when a terrorist detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in May 2017, has headed the proposal. Here, we look at how you can use daily run sheets for your event or venue to boost your counter-terrorism processes and follow the advice given within Martyn's Law.

Formalise your processes

Using a daily run sheet allows you to put your counter-terrorism processes into practice, visualising how your event and your venue security will play out in real time. Think about the locations of trained staff within your venue, and where you can integrate key security measures into your day-to-day event operations.

Carry out your vulnerabilities assessment

The second key requirement of Martyn's Law is that any venue or event operator must conduct a vulnerabilities assessment in partnership with local authorities and safety advisory groups. Carrying out this assessment by running through a typical daily event run sheet will allow you to test your event-day counter-terrorism processes in live time in a realistic scenario, imagining how your venue security will actually be tested on event day.

Involve external personnel

Make building your run sheets a collaborative process with affected stakeholders, such as local authorities and security contractors. This again makes your security processes more rigorous and your Martyn's Law planning more realistic.

Develop an audit trail

Your daily run sheet will give you digital / physical proof of what went on throughout your event day. You can see what you had planned and what ended up happening; which stakeholders were involved and in what ways; and where there were delays or other barriers to smooth event delivery. Counter-terrorism is an important and increasingly regulated area - as evidenced by Martyn's Law - and you need this audit trail so that you can answer any questions with proof of what occurred.

Learn your lessons

Run sheets are a great tool for learning lessons. If you have used them fully and effectively, you can go back and play through your whole event day again. See where you need to allow more time and where your staff were under pressure. Scrutinise run sheets across a series of events to identify trends and regular areas of delay - and deliver a smoother event day every time.

Having clear, accurate and up-to-date information in the form of a daily run sheet gives you a resource of information to boost your venue security before, during, after and for future events. Use that information to continuously refine your venue security and counter-terrorism processes. Go and read our larger introduction to Martyn's Law and how venues can follow its guidelines.