Cultural activities cover a wide range of operations — public libraries, archives, museums, galleries, historic houses, visitor attractions, botanical gardens, zoos and nature reserves. Whatever you run, the workplace health and safety duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 apply to you, and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) regulates in Great Britain with HSENI in Northern Ireland.
Most organisations in this division carry only the universal employer and premises duties. The one substantive sector-specific licensing layer sits on zoos and animal collections: if you keep wild animals on display to the public you need a zoo licence, and if you keep dangerous wild animals you need a separate dangerous-wild-animals licence — both from your local authority.
What you need to do
-
Put your safe-premises and employment foundations in place
Whatever cultural operation you run — library, archive, museum, gallery, historic site, botanical garden, zoo or nature reserve — start with the universal spine. Follow "Set up and run a safe cultural activities operation" for your health and safety, fire safety, employers' liability insurance, equality and data protection duties, plus zoo and dangerous-wild-animal licensing if you keep animals.
-
Confirm you have covered everything
Finish with the cultural activities compliance checklist to confirm your obligations are met.
Legal basis
Primary legislation and key regulations
Read it on legislation.gov.uk (opens in a new tab) legislation.gov.uk