Martyn's Law training: what your staff actually need
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Martyn's Law doesn't require you to send staff on an accredited training course. At the standard tier there's no mandatory course, no certificate to obtain, and no such thing as "SIA-mandated training." What the law does require is that your procedures actually work in practice, which means anyone with a role in them has to know what that role is. It also lets an SIA inspector question any member of staff present during an inspection (paras 9.4-9.5), so "we have a plan but nobody's read it" is a real gap even without a training duty. This guide covers what your team genuinely needs to know, the free official options worth using, and when a paid course earns its cost.
No training duty, but a competence duty
Two things are true at once here, and they sound contradictory until you separate them.
What's not required
- No accredited course. Nothing in the Act names a qualification, a provider, or a certificate you must obtain.
- No SIA mandate. The SIA is the regulator, not a training body, and doesn't mandate or approve any specific course for standard-tier compliance.
- No fixed hours or frequency. There's no minimum number of training hours, drills, or refresher sessions set out anywhere in the Act.
What is required
- Working procedures. Your four core procedures have to work "so far as reasonably practicable," not just exist on paper.
- Role awareness. Anyone with a specific part to play, locking a door, making an announcement, directing a crowd, needs to know it's theirs and what it involves.
- Ability to assist an inspector. An SIA inspector can require any person present to help answer questions during an inspection, so a blank stare from staff is itself a compliance gap (paras 9.4-9.5).
The distance between those two lists is smaller than it looks. You don't need a course, but you do need a briefing that actually lands.
What a briefing should actually cover
A useful briefing doesn't need to be long. For each of the four procedures, it needs to answer one practical question: what does this person do, specifically, when it happens?
- Evacuation. Which exits to use, which to avoid, and who does the final sweep.
- Invacuation. How to bring people inside quickly, and how to secure the point they came through.
- Lockdown. Which doors lock from inside, where the keys or fobs are, and who has the authority to call it.
- Communication. What to say, in what order, and who says it first.
See the four procedures explained for the reasoning behind each one. Simpler is often better than thorough: the guidance's own example is a venue that wrote several different evacuation procedures for different attack types, watched staff freeze during a practice because they couldn't tell which one applied, and replaced them all with a single clear procedure. Complexity isn't what an inspector is looking for. A team that can explain its one procedure confidently is.
Free official options, worth using regardless
Before anyone pays for anything, it's worth using what's already free. ProtectUK, the police-led counter-terrorism security programme, publishes ACT (Action Counters Terrorism) e-learning covering how to recognise suspicious behaviour and what to do in the first few minutes of an incident. It's free, takes under an hour, and is a sensible baseline for any member of staff. See ProtectUK for the current course and other free resources.
See Check and Notify (SCaN) is a related awareness programme worth knowing about too, aimed at spotting and reporting suspicious behaviour and unattended items. Neither of these is a substitute for a venue-specific briefing on your own procedures, but both are free, and both are a genuinely useful layer underneath one.
When paid training is worth it
A paid course is never required, but it can earn its cost in specific situations: high staff turnover, where a repeatable structured induction saves time re-briefing new starters; larger teams with several duty managers who need consistent decision-making under pressure; or enhanced-tier premises, which carry heavier duties than the standard tier and may justify more formal preparation.
Whatever you're considering, be wary of any course marketed as "SIA-mandated," "government-approved," or "legally required" for standard-tier compliance. No such mandate exists, and a course that claims otherwise is misrepresenting the law to sell itself, which is worth treating as a red flag on its own.
How our briefing sheets fit in
Once your procedures are written, the practical problem is usually keeping staff current, especially where turnover is high. Martyn's Law Plan generates a short, venue-specific briefing sheet alongside your procedures document, written around your actual site rather than a generic policy, so a new starter can be brought up to speed in minutes.
Start with the free tier checker to confirm your tier, no email required, then see the standard tier explained for the full duty this training supports.
Common questions
Is Martyn's Law training mandatory?
No. There is no legal requirement for accredited or paid training at the standard tier, and no such thing as "SIA-mandated training." What the Act does require is that people with a role in your procedures know what that role is, well enough to carry it out. A short, clear briefing satisfies that. A paid course is optional, never compulsory.
Is there official free training?
Yes. ProtectUK, the police-led counter-terrorism security programme, publishes free ACT (Action Counters Terrorism) e-learning aimed at exactly this kind of front-line awareness. It's a sound starting point for any member of staff, whatever size your venue, and it costs nothing to use.
Do volunteers need training too?
The same logic applies to volunteers as to paid staff. If someone has a role in your procedures, on the payroll or not, they need to know what that role is. The guidance counts volunteers as staff for headcount purposes, and the same applies to preparedness. Village halls, churches and community groups running on volunteers aren't exempt from briefing them.
About this guide. Written by the Martyn's Law Plan team, based on the statutory guidance published under the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. Last reviewed: . Read the official guidance on GOV.UK.
Sources: Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025; Home Office statutory guidance (April 2026, updated May 2026) and supplementary documents. Paragraph references are to the statutory guidance. General information, not legal advice. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.