The Government should blow the full-time whistle on outdated
charging regulations that mean the local taxpayer is having to
foot the £1 million annual bill for sports clubs to have ground
safety certification.
Councils are responsible for sports ground safety certification
for the 92 English Premier League and English Football League
clubs, and other sports clubs, but current laws dating back to
1975 limit how much they can charge them.
It means that councils, and therefore the local taxpayer, are
having to pick up the remainder of any costs.
New research by the LGA estimates this to amount to over £1.1
million per year, with councils paying an average cost of £5,869
per sports ground to oversee sports safety– a large number of
which will be football stadia.
Initial evidence also indicates that the costs to councils may be
higher for football stadia than for other sports grounds – in
some cases over £20,000 per ground.
Ahead of the start of the Premier League returning this evening,
the LGA said given pressures on budgets and staff time, clubs –
many of which are extremely wealthy – should pay the fees to
cover the cost of the work councils do.
It is calling for a level playing field with other businesses
that councils regulate, where the cost of a licence and
compliance monitoring is met by the businesses that benefit from
it.
The LGA wants the Government to tackle the issue and amend the
Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and linked regulations from
1987 which set out what councils can charge for, as part of the
legislation to introduce a new football regulator.
The Act requires all EPL and EFL stadia with a capacity exceeding
5,000 to have a safety certificate.
Requirements for a certificate include ensuring the structural
integrity of the stadium, provisions for means of escape,
adequate fire precautions and emergency services co-ordination.
There should also be provision of suitable management strategies
for stewarding, crowd control, match safety arrangements,
evacuation procedures and contingency plans.
While councils issue the safety certificate, responsibility for
implementing the requirements and responsibility for the safety
of spectators rests at all times with the sports ground
management. However, councils undertake annual audits and during
performance inspections to ensure safety standards are being
implemented properly.
The LGA says that while it recognises some smaller clubs might
find it challenging to pay for this, it will be down to the
football pyramid and other sports collectively to consider how
they can support such clubs to pay. It says it is vital that the
game helps those smaller clubs where needed.
Cllr , Chair of the LGA’s Safer and
Stronger Communities Board, said:
“Councils want to work with football and other sports clubs to
ensure they have all the necessary ground safety measures in
place.
“Football and sport have changed massively since 1975 when Kevin
Keegan was footballer of the year and Brentford were in the
Fourth Division. The current charging regulations are outdated
and in need of reform. It is perverse that with the revenue in
some sports, particularly football, that clubs are not meeting
the costs of this vital work, unlike other businesses councils
regulate, which rightly pick up the costs of regulation through
the licence fees they pay.
“Some of our top clubs are paying their players hundreds of
thousands of pounds a week, while at the same time councils face
significant financial pressures to provide vital local services,
and this is an extra cost they shouldn’t have to pick up.
“It is only fair that clubs pay the fees involved to cover the
full cost of issuing safety certification, rather than for this
to fall to the taxpayer.
“While these fees would not be huge, we do recognise this might
be a challenging additional cost for some smaller clubs also
struggling financially. However, there is enough collective
wealth within the game to ensure that clubs, rather than
taxpayers, should fund this.”
Notes to editors
The LGA Research and Information Team ran a survey of councils
with sports grounds to estimate the total cost to councils of
maintaining safety standards at these sports groups. Seventeen
councils responded to this survey, providing information about 47
sports grounds.
Initial analysis of the data led to the research team
highlighting a couple of potential outliers within the dataset –
Wembley Stadium and Wimbledon Tennis Club, both of which had
considerably higher reported costs than other venues due to their
size and status. As these venues would not be representative of
other sports grounds, an average figure for safety costs per
sports ground was calculated, excluding the totals from the
councils containing these two outliers. This resulted in an
average of £5,869 per sports ground.
The mean cost per council of £5,869 was then multiplied by the
number of eligible stadiums in each council to create an
estimated cost for all councils of £815,791. The research team
then added the costs for the councils containing the two outliers
to this total to create an overall cost of approximately
£1,144,000 for all councils.
