Skip to content Charities, not for profit and third sector organisations exist to help a wide range of vulnerable people in society. Managing health and safety should be a priority to ensure the wellbeing of employees, volunteers, and the clients and customers they serve. SafetyRAC provides specialised health and safety consultancy helping you stay compliant while keeping safety affordable and practical.
The statutory health and safety obligations that govern charities, not for profit, and third sector organisations are principally the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. However, the specific legislation will vary depending on the organisation’s business activities.
Social care and healthcare charities continue to face difficult health and safety challenges, particularly in safeguarding employees and volunteers who work closely with vulnerable individuals. The sector is also regarded as a high pressure environment often leading to stress, which in turn leads to increased sickness absence. Physical demands like people handling clients, highlight the importance of comprehensive training.
Housing associations face continued health and safety scrutiny around resident safety and compliance. Fire safety has been a significant area of concentration for the Government and Regulator of Social Housing specifically in multi-occupancy and high-rise residential buildings. The Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, led to substantial regulatory changes, which continue to bear an impact following the introduction of the Building Safety Act 2022.
The wider property compliance landscape around asbestos safety, gas safety, electrical safety, and water hygiene (legionella) remains equally important. In October 2024, Sanctuary Housing Association was fined £900,000 after residents were exposed to Legionnaires’ disease risks due to water system mismanagement. This significant fine demonstrates that an organisation’s “not for profit” status cannot be used to mitigate what is a landlord’s core statutory obligation.
Making Sure Your Organisation Follows the Rules!
We can help charities, not for profit and third sector organisations understand your legal health, safety, and compliance obligations so they can be confident they comply with the law.
Finding and Fixing Problems
We can help charities, not for profit, and third sector organisations to identify significant health and safety hazards and non-compliant practices before they cause an accident, injury, enforcement or civil liability issue. We can review your records and wider health and safety management framework to ensure the information required for legal compliance is available, suitable, and sufficient.
Teaching Your Team
We can help identify and deliver a range of bespoke health and safety training solutions to help develop employee comptency, behaviour, and attitude toward health and safety.
SafetyRAC offers a range of consultancy services designed for the charity and not for profit sector:
Even the best professionals sometimes need additional support or a second opinion. SafetyRAC can work alongside existing health and safety resources to provide a range of solutions where there are internal capacity issues or where projects or other issues would benefit from an independent opinion.
Don’t have an internal safety team? Our subscription health and safety advice line may be just what you need. It offers:
Navigate to our resources page, where we have a range of free tools and calculators to help make achieving health and safety compliance easier. Our free tools include:
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