Sources & methodology
How Hospli checks and applies Martyn's Law guidance.
Hospli is designed to show its homework. Legal and regulatory information is based on primary official sources first. Hospitality operating experience is then used to make that information easier to understand and apply inside real venues.
Guidance status
Reviewed 6 September 2026
Hospli's current methodology has been reviewed against the Home Office section 27 statutory guidance for the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, updated 25 August 2026, together with current Security Industry Authority information.
The SIA has said that its final section 12 guidance explaining how it will exercise its Martyn's Law regulatory functions is due in autumn 2026. Hospli will review its methodology when that final guidance is published.
Source hierarchy
- Legislation and statutory guidance — the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 and statutory material published by the Home Office.
- Security Industry Authority — regulator guidance, implementation information and regulatory material.
- ProtectUK and NPSA — official protective-security information relevant to venue preparedness and response.
- Government and public-sector information — used for supporting factual context where relevant.
- Hospitality operating experience — used to make official requirements practical for hospitality operators, never as a substitute for legislation or the regulator.
Core official sources
Home Office statutory guidance
Section 27 statutory guidance covering scope, responsibility, legal requirements and compliance under the Act.
Read the statutory guidanceSecurity Industry Authority
Current regulator information explaining the SIA's role, implementation position and approach to Martyn's Law.
Understanding Martyn's Law and the SIA's roleThe legislation
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 is the legal foundation. Guidance helps explain how its requirements apply.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025ProtectUK
Official protective-security guidance and free preparedness resources for organisations and people responsible for public places.
ProtectUKFrom guidance to product
What Hospli records — and what that record does not prove.
Hospli deliberately separates the official requirement from the product feature used to organise information about it. This helps prevent a software feature from being mistaken for a legal determination.
Scope and headcount
Official basis: The statutory guidance explains the tests for qualifying premises and the reasonable expectation of the number of individuals present.
How Hospli helps: Hospli records venue information and headcount inputs and uses them to indicate the relevant readiness pathway.
Evidence produced: A dated venue assessment and the headcount information used for the result.
Important limitation: Headcount alone does not determine whether premises are legally in scope. Hospli's result is not a binding legal determination.
Responsible Person
Official basis: The Act and statutory guidance determine responsibility by reference to control of qualifying premises or an event.
How Hospli helps: Hospli provides a venue-specific Responsible Person record so responsibility is recorded rather than assumed.
Evidence produced: The named person, role and associated venue record maintained in Hospli.
Important limitation: Hospli does not decide legal control or replace legal advice where responsibility is disputed or complex.
Public protection procedures
Official basis: The Act identifies evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication as the four public protection procedures.
How Hospli helps: Hospli's Standard Tier workflow provides structured records for each of the four procedures.
Evidence produced: Published procedure versions, dates, review information and the content recorded for each procedure.
Important limitation: Procedures must be appropriate to the individual premises and put in place so far as reasonably practicable. Hospli cannot make that judgement for the responsible person.
Staff awareness
Official basis: The statutory guidance says people responsible for carrying out procedures must be made aware of them and understand their role. It does not impose a general requirement to buy a particular third-party training course.
How Hospli helps: Hospli allows procedure versions to be assigned to staff and records acknowledgement of the version received.
Evidence produced: Briefing assignments and acknowledgement records linked to procedure versions.
Important limitation: An acknowledgement records receipt and acknowledgement. It is not a certificate of training, competence or statutory compliance.
Evidence and review
Official basis: The statutory guidance explains how responsible persons may need to demonstrate that appropriate and reasonably practicable arrangements are in place.
How Hospli helps: Hospli maintains an Evidence Timeline, procedure version history, review dates and a dated Venue Record Pack.
Evidence produced: A time-stamped history of activity recorded in Hospli and downloadable snapshot of the venue record.
Important limitation: A Hospli record shows what has been recorded in the platform. It does not prove that every legal duty has been satisfied in practice.
How Hospli reads official wording
The Home Office statutory guidance deliberately distinguishes between different levels of wording. Hospli preserves those distinctions instead of turning recommendations into legal requirements.
Must
Used in the statutory guidance for a legal requirement in the Act.
Should
Strongly recommended or encouraged good practice, but not by itself an express legal requirement in the Act.
Could
An optional suggestion or example rather than a legal requirement.
Reasonably practicable
Requires the responsible person to consider what is appropriate and proportionate for the particular premises, including its circumstances and available resources.
How the Venue Checker works
The Venue Checker asks users for factual information about the premises and the greatest number of people they reasonably expect may be present at the same time, including relevant staff and other people working at the venue.
Hospli maps that information to its current pathway logic. The result is a readiness indicator, not a binding determination of legal scope. Where information points beyond Hospli's supported Standard Tier workflow, the product does not pretend to provide an unsupported Enhanced Tier compliance pathway.
Staff briefings are not sold as certificates
The statutory guidance states that staff responsible for carrying out procedures need to be made aware of those procedures and understand their role. It also makes clear that there is no general statutory requirement to buy a particular third-party training course.
Hospli therefore records procedure briefing assignments and acknowledgements. An acknowledgement shows that a procedure version was received and acknowledged. It is not described as a certificate of training, competence or compliance.
How hospitality examples are written
Hospitality examples may consider practical factors such as staff, contractors, performers, function rooms, beer gardens, guest areas, live entertainment and changing trading patterns.
These examples are intended to help operators think about their own premises. They are not statements that every venue of the same type must operate in the same way.
What Hospli will not claim
- That Hospli is approved or endorsed by the SIA or Home Office.
- That completing a Hospli workflow guarantees legal compliance.
- That headcount alone determines whether premises are in scope.
- That a generic procedure is automatically appropriate or reasonably practicable for every venue.
- That a staff acknowledgement is a certificate of training or competence.
- That Hospli currently provides a complete Enhanced Tier compliance workflow.
What Hospli will not use as legal authority
Competitor marketing claims, promotional summaries, social-media posts and unsupported statements are not treated as primary legal or regulatory authority for Hospli's guidance.
Editorial standards
Accuracy before certainty.
Hospli aims to preserve important qualifications in official guidance rather than turning them into stronger marketing claims. Where an issue depends on the circumstances of an individual premises, Hospli says so.