An online survey has been launched by the publishers of the Purple Guide to assess whether there is support from the industry to establish a Primary Authority agreement around the guidance.
The Primary Authority development aims to create a more consistent approach to managing outdoor events through coordinated guidance interpretation.
Applying the Primary Authority scheme to the Purple Guide would be a new step as it would be the first time it is applied to a guidance document, rather than legislation.
You can read an outline of how the scheme would work here
The launch of the consultation follows months of discussions with the industry, presentations at conferences and at exhibitions, including the Event Production Show in February.
If supported, the Primary Authority would be exclusively available to subscribers of the Purple Guide who want to take advantage of it. Initially the scheme would only operate in England, but the intention would be to eventually expand this to the devolved nations as well. In England, the scheme would operate in collaboration with Brighton & Hove Council.
Ian Baird from Brighton & Hove Council commented: “We believe a Primary Authority scheme would improve national conversations to encourage consistency and, thereby, help organisers operating across multiple local authorities. It will also help local authorities benchmark to ‘reasonable’ requests, with an arbitration process. The scheme would also help the publishers of the Purple Guide to keep its guidance up-to-date and relevant as practices across the industry evolve.”
The survey can be found here.
