Legal requirements and best practice for forums

• If you are an unincorporated association you will need to consider this carefully as the members of your group could be directly liable if something goes wrong.
• Hosted groups may be covered under their host’s insurance. You would need to check your agreement or MOU.
• Charities, CIOs have a duty to protect their assets and resources. Although insurance is legally required, having insurance is one way to meet this duty. You may also want to think about insurance to specifically protect your Trustees. Read more on the gov.uk website and charityexcellence
• Community Interest Companies may want to think about directors’ and officers’ insurance, which is the equivalent of trustees insurance.

Public liability insurance helps protect individuals and businesses if someone else claims that they harmed or caused them loss. Some policies may also cover legal advice so please check with your insurer.

For forums, this means if a member of the public sues them for injury, damage or loss of property caused by the forum activities, the insurance can cover the costs of compensation.

This insurance does not cover accidents or loss to the forum or individuals involved in the forum only to third parties (customers, suppliers or members of the public).

You could extend public liability insurance to protect volunteers working for you. You would need to discuss this with your insurance company.

This type of insurance is not a legal requirement, but you should think about the type of work you do and whether you should have this insurance to protect the forum

Example: A forum organises an event in a local park. During the event, a parent carer trips over an unsecured cable and gets injured. The visitor then decides to sue the forum for not ensuring the area was safe.

In this situation, the community group’s public liability insurance would help cover the costs of the visitor’s medical bills and any compensation for their injury.

Please note that public liability insurance won’t usually cover:

• Accidents to you
• Accidents to your employees
• Damage to employees’ possessions
• Damage to your own business premises
• Claims of fault with your work
• Negligence (please check the details of your insurance policy)

You should think about this insurance if:

• you are interacting with members of the public on a regular basis or holding events
• You may find that if you are running events the venue will have public liability insurance to cover you, but you must check with venue
• You may find that some grant funders or events venue will require you to have your own insurance.
• Some legal structures will need this insurance, depending on the type of work they do.
• If you own a premises and run events this insurance will be necessary
• When running events you should also think about Health and Safety and carry out risk assessments, see our policies and procedures page for examples and templates.

Some forums employ people for various roles, whether they are full-time or temporary. If an employee gets hurt or sick because of their job, they can claim compensation. This can be expensive.
Employers’ liability insurance helps cover these compensation costs. It could also cover and associated legal fees.

This insurance is legally required for any business with paid employees, even if you only have one. See our paying people page to check whether the people who work for you are employed, self-employed or volunteers using the HMRC checker.

If you just run on volunteers, then it is not a requirement to have employers’ liability insurance. But the forum will not be covered if a volunteer has an injury, unless they are covered under the forum’s public liability insurance.

If you hold a dual role in the forum e.g part employed and part either volunteer, director or self employed in the forum, you will have to check with your insurance company how you’re covered.

Employers liability insurance could also cover volunteers working for the forum. You will need to check if your insurance company covers volunteers. Read more about Insurance and volunteers from NCVO.

Example: Imagine a forum runs a coffee morning with the help of employees. One day, an employee injures their back while lifting heavy boxes of food. The employee then decides to claim compensation for their injury.

In this case, the forums employers’ liability insurance could help cover the costs of the employee’s medical treatment and any compensation. It would also cover legal fees and help the group continue its operations smoothly during the claim process.

If the forum works with self-employed people they will need to consider:

• Self-employed people will generally not be covered by a forum’s insurance. You will need to check with your insurance company about who and what is covered.
• Self-employed people may need to have their own insurance particularly if they are providing a paid service or giving advice to or on behalf of the forum.

Professional indemnity insurance (also called P.I or professional liability insurance) protects business owners, self-employed people, and freelancers if clients claim their service was poor due to mistakes or negligence.

Although not legally required, it’s recommended for anyone providing a paid service or advice.

This insurance covers:
• Bodily injury: If someone gets hurt because of your negligence.
• Consequential loss: Financial loss to clients due to your mistakes.
• Defamation: Harm to someone’s reputation from false statements.
• Confidentiality breaches: Legal issues from breaking confidentiality.
• Intellectual property: Claims that your work is too similar to someone else’s.

Professional indemnity insurance usually covers claims made during the policy period, you would need to check this with your insurer.

Example: A forum offers specialised support sessions for children with learning disabilities. One day, a parent claims that their child received incorrect advice during a session, which led to the child struggling more in school and experiencing emotional distress. The parent decides to sue the forum for the inadequate service.

In this situation, the forum’s professional indemnity insurance would help cover the costs of legal fees and any compensation for the parent’s claim.

Contents insurance protects your contents from loss, damage or theft and can cover the cost or of repairing or replacing them. You would need to have a conversation with your insurance company to discuss what forum assets you need protected.

You will need to think about who is using the equipment (e.g. staff or volunteers) and how they are using the equipment (e.g. is it a laptop they are taking to different places)

This is not a legal requirement, but it is good practice to think about how to insure your valuable forum assets.

You will need keep an asset register, see our policies and procedures page.

This type of insurance is to protect trustees and senior decision-makers. Having this kind of insurance could be an incentive to work for you as it could protect them from risking their personal assets if something goes wrong.

Trustee insurance doesn’t cover intentional wrongdoing, fraud, criminal acts or fines and penalties imposed by law. It is designed to protect trustees from personal liability for honest mistakes, enabling them to carry out their role with confidence.

• Resource centre has more information on insurance Public liability and employer’s liability |
• Resource Centre and a list of potential providers Insurance suppliers
• Before deciding to buy insurance you could talk to Community Matters for more advice.
• You could also ask other forums about how they’re insured and what questions to ask.

Example 1

X forum are a constituted group and have a steering group with a paid administrator and volunteer parent representatives. The forum run 4-6 coffee mornings, training events and some focus groups through the year. They run a summer holiday event and a Christmas event. They decided that they don’t run any regulated activity because parent carers are always present at the family events and remain responsible for their children. The forum only run two of those kinds of events a year. No forum member is left alone with any of the children. They decided that they needed to carry out basic DBS checks in discussion with their LA.

Example 2

X forum has additional funding from the Local authority and health services. They’re a Charitable incorporated Association. They have eight trustees, a steering group, six parent representatives, five paid staff and four volunteers. They run 8 family events during the year and allow parents to bring their children. Two play workers are present at events to give parents a break from children and to enable the forum to speak to the parents about their experiences. They reviewed the information on regulated activity and decided that as they run regular events for families and look after the children for a period of time, that the play workers and the staff involved in running the events needed to have full DBS checks.

Example 3

X forum has additional funding from the national lottery and a contract that the local authority and health jointly fund. They became a Community Interest Company with 3 Directors and a steering group. The Directors are paid to carry out some of the work in the forum and they have a paid administrator. They hold 12 events for parent carers through the year and some parents bring their children, though the parents remain responsible for their children at all times. They also run focus groups, conferences and training sessions for parent carers. They decided that they weren’t involved in any regulated activity, but the LA requested that the Directors, staff and steering group had DBS checks. The Directors and staff all had full DBS checks and the steering group had basic checks.

Request a basic DBS check – GOV.UK

Roles: Anyone can apply, including self-applications. Anyone can request for someone to have this check, it is good practice to let people know you will ask them to get a DBS check as part of their employment or volunteering. You should also let people know if you are expecting them or the forum to pay for this service.

Disclosures: Unspent convictions and conditional cautions.

Roles: Specific roles under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (e.g., medical practitioners, solicitors). This level of check is unlikely to apply to forums as it covers specific careers.

Disclosures: Spent and unspent convictions, cautions, warnings, and reprimands.

Volunteers can use this service for free but note that the umbrella organisation will probably still charge the admin fee. Volunteers must not be in receipt of any money from the forum beyond out-of-pocket expenses.

Roles: if the person is involved in ‘work with adults’ or ‘work with children’. These terms have specific definitions: Eligibility guidance for enhanced DBS checks – GOV.UK

Disclosures: Spent and unspent convictions, cautions, warnings, reprimands, and relevant non-conviction information from local police.

Roles: For people involved in ‘regulated activity’ with children or adults.

Regulated activity with children in England and Wales – GOV.UK

Regulated activity with adults in England and Wales – GOV.UK

Disclosures: Spent and unspent convictions, cautions, warnings, reprimands, relevant non-conviction information, and whether the individual is barred from working with children or adults.

Reading voluntary action:

RVA-DBS-Guide-updated-Sep-2024.docx

DBS Checks: Working with Children in the Charity Sector in the Charity Sector

DBS Checks: Working with Adults in the Charity Sector in the Charity Sector

Resourcecentre:

Using the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) | Resource Centre

Running a forum or being parent rep can be very time consuming and require contact with a lot of different groups as well as strategic partners. It’s really important for forum members to protect their mental health and wellbeing.

Having a forum specific contact (phone/email) can help with:

• Work-Life Balance: Using separate contact details helps you manage your work-life balance more effectively, preventing work-related issues from spilling into your personal life. Putting limits on how and when you will check your emails or phone will allow you to have down time from work, particularly if you are going through a stressful time.
• Overwhelming Communication: You might find yourself overwhelmed with the volume of communication, making it difficult to manage and respond effectively. This can affect your productivity and well-being. It can be hard to manage and sort emails if they are all coming to the same email address.

It is not advisable to use your home address for forum work. The same goes for your personal contact details like email address and phone number.

Having a forum specific contact (phone/email) can help with:

• Privacy: Sharing personal contact details can expose you to unwanted communication, it could also give people access to your personal social media accounts if your email is your full name or linked to your social media handle.
• Unwanted Communication: Sharing your personal contact details can lead to receiving unsolicited calls, messages, or emails from individuals you may not know or want to interact with. This can be disruptive and time-consuming.

Forums have a duty to manage data effectively and in line with GDPR and privacy as part of the conditions of the DfE grant.

Having a forum specific contact (phone/email) can help with:

• Data Protection Obligations: Your personal email may not be subject to the same policies and procedures as an organisational email address. Information may come into your personal account that should not be stored there for GDPR reasons.
• Consent and Transparency: GDPR mandates that individuals must be informed about how their data will be used. They must give explicit consent. This could cause a problem for you if someone shares your personal contact details without your consent. It could also cause problems for the forum if you are storing other people’s data on your personal account.

• Consistency: Using a dedicated contact method for forum work ensures consistent communication from a single source and easier management of group activities as people will know who and where the information is coming from. It can be hard to change emails if you have been operating on personal emails for some time.
• Access to information: if a forum member leaves the forum, you could lose the information saved in their emails.
• Professional Boundaries: Keeping personal and professional contacts separate helps maintain clear boundaries and professionalism.
• Expenses claims: When a person working for the forum claims out-of-pocket expenses for using their personal phone for work, determining the exact amount to claim can be more time-consuming