Martyn's Law for churches
The funeral puts you over, not the average Sunday.
About 33,300 places of worship are expected to fall into standard tier. Most of them are quiet most of the time, which is exactly why the counting rule catches people out.
Worked example
What the count actually looks like.
Everyone present at the same moment, on your busiest realistic day. Not an average, and not just the people who paid.
A parish church at a large funeral
- Congregation
- 240
- Clergy, servers and musicians
- 12
- Welcomers, and the tea and coffee rota
- 9
- Funeral directors and bearers
- 6
- Present at once
- Standard tier267
267 present at once. The same building holds 70 on an ordinary Sunday, and it is the funeral that decides the answer, not the ordinary Sunday.
What catches people out
The parts specific to your sector.
You stay standard tier at any size
Places of worship enter standard tier at 200 and remain there however many are present. A cathedral at 2,000 on Christmas Eve is standard tier, not enhanced. This is one of the few genuinely generous parts of the Act.
Weddings, funerals and carol services are the test
The test is what it is reasonable to expect from time to time, not your weekly average. If you have held a 300-person funeral, you have a 300-person answer to give.
The church hall is a real question
Whether an annexed or attached hall counts as part of the place of worship is one of the points commentators note the guidance still leaves unclear. If your hall is let out separately, treat it as its own question and read the guidance rather than assuming.
Volunteers count, and there are more of them than you think
Welcomers, servers, musicians, flower arrangers, the coffee rota, the person on the sound desk. None of them are paid and all of them are present.
Worth knowing: churches and places of worship enter standard tier at 200 people and stay there however many are present. You do not move up to enhanced tier on headcount alone, whatever your busiest day looks like.
If you look after several
One report, not one exercise per site.
Dioceses and denominational offices sit above hundreds of parishes, each run by a volunteer treasurer or churchwarden. One scope report across the whole diocese answers the question once rather than 300 times.
Home Office impact assessment: about 33,323 premises in this sector are expected to fall into standard tier.
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Six questions, a cited answer, and a result you can print and take to your committee. Plenty of places run it and find they are not in scope at all.