For places of worship

Places of worship are standard tier, whatever the capacity

This is the single most useful thing to know about Martyn's Law if you look after a place of worship, and it is good news. Whatever the building holds, the duty on it is the lighter one.

Why this exception exists

Parliament recognised during the Bill's passage that placing large places of worship in enhanced tier would have imposed serious cost on organisations that are usually run by volunteers and funded by their congregations, and would have changed the character of buildings that are meant to be open to anyone who walks in.

The exception is narrow. It is about the tier, not about being outside the law. A place of worship in scope still has to do the standard tier work.

What you actually have to do

• Write down what people should do in four situations: getting out, coming in or moving to safety, locking down, and how you would tell everyone.
• Make sure the people who would be there know what those procedures say. That includes volunteers, wardens, stewards and anyone who opens up.
• Be able to show you did both of those things.

There is no requirement to install CCTV, put in barriers, search bags or employ security staff. If somebody is quoting you for equipment on the basis that Martyn's Law requires it at standard tier, it does not.

The volunteer problem

Standard tier asks that the people present are aware of the procedures. In a workplace that means staff, and there is a payroll to check against. A place of worship does not have that. It has a rota, a WhatsApp group, and people who help out when they can.

This is the genuinely hard part, and no software fixes it on its own. What records do is make it visible: who has actually been briefed, who has not, and how long ago. A rota of forty volunteers where eleven have never been through it is a normal position, and one you cannot see without writing it down.

If you answer for many buildings

A diocese, a synod, a network of mosques or a charity with many sites has the same problem a pub company has, with less money and more volunteers. Each building is a separate premises with its own responsible person, and the body in the middle usually has no legal duty at all but is the one everybody turns to for guidance.

That is where Musterlog is sold: one licence held by the body that holds the list, free at the building. The parish or congregation gets somewhere to keep its procedures and its rota records, and the centre gets to see which buildings have nothing.

Free things to use first

Before spending anything, use these. They are official and they cost nothing.

• ProtectUK, run by the Home Office, NaCTSO and Counter Terrorism Policing, for procedure templates and the ACT Awareness course.
• Your own denomination or network's guidance, which is often already written for your context.
• The Home Office statutory guidance, published April 2026.