Keeping your premises safety checks up to date

Your premises need regular checks: the fire alarm every week, the extinguishers every month, the gas safety check every year. Many groups keep these in a paper logbook or a spreadsheet that one person looks after. Compliance logbooks put every check in one place. Each check records who did it, what they found and when the next one is due. When a check finds a problem, a trustee can turn it into an action with an owner, so it gets fixed.

This feature is currently in beta. Turn it on in Settings → Beta Programme.

Where to find it

The module has three pages:

Page	What it holds
Compliance logbooks	Your recurring premises checks, when each is due, and its history
COSHH register	The hazardous substances you store, with their Safety Data Sheets
Fire risk assessments	The fire risk assessment of each premises, its findings and its review date

Trustees find all three in the trustee section of the sidebar. Leaders and group admins who are not trustees find them as their own items in the sidebar, just after Events.

Who	What they can do
Trustees and group admins	Set up logbooks, complete checks, raise actions, manage the COSHH register and fire risk assessments, share checks with contractors
Leaders	Complete checks, and read the logbooks, the COSHH register and the fire risk assessments

Setting up your logbooks

The quickest start is a template. On Compliance logbooks, click Choose templates.

Pick the premises: one of your meeting places or a hire space.
Tick the checks you need. The checks a typical Scout headquarters needs are ticked for you.
Some templates are room by room, such as the fire hazard checksheet and the first aid kit check. Type your rooms in the Rooms or areas box, for example "Main hall, Kitchen". Scoutworks makes one logbook for each room. Leave the box empty to make one logbook for the whole premises.
Click Add logbooks. The button tells you how many logbooks it will make.

The library covers fire safety, gas, electrical, water, first aid, building and grounds, activity equipment and minibuses. Many templates say which guidance from The Scouts they are based on. If you add a template that you already have for the same premises and room, Scoutworks skips it, so you never get two copies.

To build your own, click New logbook. Give it a name, a category (such as "Fire safety") and how often it repeats. Then add sections and questions. Turn on For information only to keep a record that does not count towards the compliance score.

Reading the logbooks register

The Logbooks tab lists every logbook in a table, grouped by category. Each row shows the premises and room, the status, the next due date, the last time it passed and how often it repeats.

Status	What it means
Up to date	The last check passed and the next one is not due yet
Due soon	The next check is close. For a weekly check that is 2 days; for a monthly check, 7 days; for anything less often, 30 days
Overdue	The due date has passed
Failed	The last check found a problem
No record yet	Nobody has completed this check yet
Switched off	The logbook is paused and left out of the score

Use the search box and the Premises and State filters to narrow the list.

Trustees and group admins can tick several rows to work on them at once. Choose Change due date to move them all to one date, with one reason. Choose Remove to take them off the register. Removing a logbook keeps its past checks and actions. To pause a logbook, use Switch off in its row menu.

Completing a check

Click Complete check in a logbook's row menu, or open the logbook and click Complete a check.

Choose the Date of the check.
Answer each question with one tap: Yes, No or N/A (or Pass or Fail).
If a whole section does not apply, turn on Section N/A.
For a No or Fail, say what is wrong and what happens next.
Add any notes the next person should know, and save.

Scoutworks works out the next due date from how often the check repeats. Any No or Fail answer makes the check fail. N/A never counts against you.

If a check cannot happen on time, for example because the engineer is booked for next month, a trustee can choose Change due date and give a reason. The reason shows on the logbook.

Seeing a logbook's history

Click any row to open the logbook. The sheet shows:

its status
any Open actions raised from it, each linked to its card on the trustee board
its details: how often it repeats, the premises and room, the last pass, the next due date and what it is based on
its History: one line for each check, newest first, with the date, who did it and whether it passed

Click a check in the history to see every answer, the notes and who did it. A failed answer shows in red.

Turning a failed check into an action

Open the failed check from the logbook's history. Next to each failed answer, trustees and group admins see Raise action. Scoutworks fills in the title, suggests an owner and sets a due date two weeks away. You can change any of these, or leave the owner as Nobody yet.

The action becomes a card on the trustee task board, with the same reminders as other trustee duties. The failed answer then shows the action, its owner and its progress. When a leader looks at a failed answer, they see "A trustee will follow this up."

To see the actions you own, open the trustee task board and filter by Me. Filter by Nobody to find actions that still need an owner.

Your gas engineer or PAT tester can record their check straight into the logbook. They do not need an account.

In the logbook's row menu, choose Share with a contractor.
Choose how long the link works: 7, 14, 30 or 90 days.
Leave Approve the check before it counts on if you want to read the answers first.
Add the contractor's email address if you want Scoutworks to send the link, then click Make link (or Make and email link).

Copy the link straight away. For security, Scoutworks cannot show it again. If you lose it, make a new one. Each link records one check. The contractor sees this logbook's questions and nothing else.

When approval is on, the check waits on the Contractor checks tab. The tab shows a count while checks are waiting. Open a check, read the answers, then approve or reject it. Until you approve it, the check does not change the due date or the score. You can revoke a link at any time from the same sheet.

Keeping a COSHH register

COSHH is the law on hazardous substances. Under it, you should record each hazardous substance you store, such as camping fuel, gas, cleaning products, paint and weed killer. Keep its Safety Data Sheet with it, so a volunteer knows what to do after a spill.

On COSHH register, click Add substance and fill in:

Field	What to enter
The substance	The name on the label, the manufacturer and what you use it for
Where and how much	The premises, where it is kept and how much you hold
Hazards	Tick each red diamond printed on the label
Safety Data Sheet	Upload the sheet as a PDF or a photo. You can also add it later
Controls and notes	How to use it safely, and first aid

The register shows the hazard symbols for each substance. It marks any substance with no Safety Data Sheet as Missing. Search by name, or filter by premises, hazard or status. Click a substance to see its details, its sheet and a history of every change.

When a substance leaves, remove it and choose why: used up, disposed of safely, no longer stored here, or added in error. It stays on the record under the Removed status.

Recording fire risk assessments

Each building your group is responsible for needs a fire risk assessment, done by a competent person and kept up to date. On Fire risk assessments, click Record assessment and enter:

the premises
the date of the assessment, and the assessor's name and organisation
the next review date
a short summary
each significant finding

Upload the assessor's report to the assessment. Then open each finding and raise an action for it. The action goes on the trustee task board, as it does for a failed logbook check. The next review date also becomes a duty on the board, so the review is not missed. When you record a newer assessment of the same premises, it replaces the old one.

How logbooks help with the premises audit

The Safe Scouting premises audit asks when checks such as the gas safety check, the fixed wiring inspection and the fire drill were last done. When you have a logbook for that check, the audit question shows its last check, the result and the next due date, so you do not need to look them up. The fire risk assessment question shows your latest assessment. If a check has no logbook yet, the question links you to add one.

Publishing a public compliance page

You can show parents, funders and your district that your premises checks are up to date. The public page shows one score and a line for each category you choose. It never shows names, logbook titles, answers or anything about safeguarding.

The page is off until you turn it on. On Compliance logbooks, open the Settings tab. Group admins also find it in Settings → Governance.

Turn on the switch to publish the page, then copy its link.
Turn on each category you want to show. A new category stays hidden until you turn it on.

A hidden category still counts towards the score, so the public score always matches the one trustees see. A safeguarding category is never shown publicly.

What's next

Running the Safe Scouting premises audit — the yearly review that your logbooks feed into
Managing trustee duties and calendar — where actions and review dates appear
Organising your work with task boards — moving action cards along the trustee board