Martyn’s Law: The impact on collaboration and incident command

Martyn’s Law replaces an inconsistent security landscape with a statutory duty, ensuring that (particularly for premises of 800+ capacity) security measures and protocols are in place across a number of areas. There is a real chance that these measures will improve collaboration and communication with emergency services, and improve incident command responses and information flows.

How does the new regulation match to incident command and collaboration principles, and how will this benefit public safety?

Better prepared to collaborate with incident responders

Martyn’s Law mandates that premises carry out risk assessments, develop proportionate security plans, and train staff accordingly. This directly supports the preparedness principle within the UK’s incident command framework, particularly in the context of Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP).

For Enhanced Duty venues, there is an opportunity under these new regulations to collectively plan with emergency services, building awareness of standard operating principles for incidents that venue employees should be aware of.

The security measures mandated will likely embed roles and responsibilities across named employers and premise operators, which can then hand over to emergency services when they take operational control. Having better prepared premises and staffing of public venues will enable more effective and efficient incident responses.

Information and situational awareness

For incident commanders, this means that they should easily be able to receive information from someone who understands the information required by emergency responders, for example the internal site layout, risk profile, and evacuation strategy. This aligns with initial operational response duties (as per the JESIP Interoperability Framework) and enables faster establishment of operational command structures.

Effective response depends on accurate, timely intelligence. Venues will now have to maintain up-to-date plans and contact information, which can then be accessed by emergency responders. This supports the five JESIP principles – but is particularly relevant to co-location and communication – meaning that responders can obtain relevant risk information quickly (e.g. occupancy levels, access points, hazardous materials).

In addition, there are many times during incident response where emergency services can’t attend all reports or take all emergency calls, so having effective assessment and communication on the ground becomes more essential.

Post-incident assessment and continuous improvement

This structured information sharing will help with post-incident transparency, allowing investigators to assess not only the emergency service response but also the compliance and preparedness of venue operators.

Assessing the incident response through the lens of the effectiveness of the premises security measures will provide a crucial insight for premises and emergency services alike to share insights, identify systematic issues, enhance local and regional preparedness frameworks – and ultimately lead to better protection for the public. It supports accountability and ensures that learnings translate into policy, training, and future prevention strategies.

Martyn’s Law marks a progression in the partnership between public venues and emergency services in protecting public safety. By aligning with existing incident command principles, the regulations strengthen operational readiness but also support a transparent, joined-up approach to counter-terrorism preparedness, creating better societal resilience to threats.