A COVID-19 Risk Assessment Template

Guidance has been issued by the Government to help churches with the process of producing a risk assessment. Only one thing is mandatory, and that is a Risk Assessment. It is vital, therefore, that each FIEC church assesses risk and monitors their findings, taking into account all the Government guidance as we gather for public worship.

This is why FIEC commissioned a template Risk Assessment which churches can use to help them to decide on how to safely meet - covering all activities of the local church, not just Sunday gatherings.

The template was originally created in August 2020 but has been updated to reflect the relaxation of legal restrictions in the summer of 2021.

We are indebted to Manny Kemp from Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge who put this together for us and made the updates. It includes a full set of guidance notes, a worked example and sample lists of church activities and meetings that should be covered by a robust Risk Assessment.

Before completing your Risk Assessment, churches should read and digest the Government guidance for Places of Worship in full, as well as consulting the other guidance for churches on our website.

Furthermore, this template should not replace your existing church Risk Assessment, but instead be a supplementary document to help you to deal with the specific challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic. It could, of course, lead to you making changes to your general church Risk Assessment as some of the guidelines become a “new normal” for church life.

Finally, our template is just that: a template. It must be filled in robustly, taking into account your individual needs and context. We cannot accept any liability for a poorly constructed Risk Assessment using this template, but we hope the information we have made available via the links above will help every church to complete this task well.