General Guidance

We have been asked by our Member Clubs Do we need Risk Assessments?

Unless your camera club employs staff you do not come under specific Health & Safety Legislation. However, the premises where you hold your meetings and more importantly your club insurers may insist on risk assessments being in place. This makes sense and is good practice. (The PAGB Insurance Brokers Darwin Clayton recommend that you do Risk Assessments and keep records of them having been done) 

Clubs, their members and officials do have a duty of care to look after each other and others they may come into contact with. If there is an accident that results in some form of claim against the club then it is very likely your insurers will look to see what actions you have taken as a club to mitigate any risks that could reasonably be predicted.

How do we complete a Risk Assessment?

There are 5 steps to risk assessments

Step 1 Identify the Risks

Step 2 Decide who may be harmed and how

Step 3 Evaluate the risk and what precautions can be taken

Step 4 Record your findings and impliment them

Step 5 Review your risk assessment and update if required

A document produced by one of our SPF Executive Members is available to download below. This outlines the basic process and explains how to go about completing a risk assessment. This document also gives links to more information on this subject, including a template for you to use when completing your own Club Risk Assessment together with an example of a simple risk assessment for A Camera Club

It is important that you carry out your OWN risk assessment that is specific to your Club, premises and outings.

We have also given a few of these links below so that they are easy to access

Health and Safety Executive Brief Guide to Risk Assessment (click here)

Blank Risk Assessment Template (click here)

The SPF have had a number of enquires from SPF Member Clubs trying to gain access to download PAGB Recorded Lectures for their Clubs.

Info for SPF Club Members and Clubs Gaining Access to the PAGB’s CES Website Including gaining PAGB Recorded Lecture Service

The PAGB’ Competition Entries System (CES); amongst other things allows all PAGB affiliated Clubs (including all SPF Clubs) access to the PAGB’s Recorded Lecture Service (More details about the PAGB RLS from PAGB e-news 264 extract below). Clubs may also use this access to enter PAGB Competitions such as the PAGB GB Cup and Trophy, or access their records for past events.

Following on from our previous guidance there has been a recent change to the way log-in access to the PAGB's CES Website works.

The enquiries the SPF have received recently from SPF Club Committee Members ask why they can’t gain access to this PAGB site even although they are a PAGB affiliated Club via their SPF membership and have SPF website access. To clarify, the SPF administers its own SPF website, and that is what every SPF Club is set up to access by the SPF, currently for entry to the SPF Admin area for competition entry (by Libby), this website log-in access is only for this SPF website.

NEW - Although all SPF Member Clubs are listed on the PAGB CES website by the SPF, it is up to Individuals to make their own registration on the PAGB Competition Entry System (CES) site to gain access for the access they require.

NEW - You can now register once and upgrade your registration to all of the following using the one log-in - 'Club Member', 'Speaker' (Judge or Lecturer) and as a 'Club' or 'Federation Officer'. This means you can create an Individual Log-In and then request or change the registration as your requirements for access to the site changes. You no longer require a different log-in for each different purpose. All registrations will require subsequent approval by the relevant Data Manager.

NEW - All Log-ins now require to be made using a personal email address this is to improve security and increase simplicity of use, the system now only accepts personal logins, so anonymous or shared accounts are no longer permitted e.g. secretary@ type email addresses cannot be used, and you should not give your log-in details to anyone else in your Club.

For full details please see the PDF available below for details as at Jan 2022

This section should be read in conjunction with the Data Protection downloads available below ('Data Protection and the SPF Guidance Document' contains all documents in one)

As there was new Data Protection legislation that came in to force in May 2018, the SPF had to put certain things in place to comply with the new legislation. And; following new documentation laid out by the PAGB in Feb 2018 (updated Apr 18), the SPF have put a Data Protection Policy in place and amended our Competition Rules for all events in line with the new requirements. 

This information is advisory and does not set out a policy for anyone to follow. It is intended only as guidelines for Clubs to construct their own policy. Whilst this information has been researched and we believe it to be accurate, the SPF and/or PAGB can accept no responsibility for any errors or incorrect statements and cannot be held liable for any consequent actions which may arise.

Clubs should particularly check the Guidance Summary given by the PAGB in their PAGB Advice Document;

Extract from PAGB Advice – The new legislation adds a requirement for all data controllers to demonstrate their compliance Federations/Clubs need to inform volunteers about the requirements for holding and using personal data. Federations/Clubs do not need explicit consent to collect personal data, but implied consent is only valid within a published policy. The data controllers of Inter-Club and similar events will need to ensure they have consent from individual photographers whose work is entered via a third party.

The main areas where some changes may be required by your Club, in addition to what you already do, are shown in the Summary List of Actions -

• Federations/Clubs will need to prepare and publish a data protection policy containing an adequate description of what personal data will be collected and for what purposes. – This is required so that implied consent is valid for competition secretaries entering member’s work in Inter-Club/SPF/PAGB events (SPF Draft Club Policy available to download above)
• Federations/Clubs will need to review and document their compliance with their own policy.
• Federations/Clubs will need to inform their volunteer officials about maintaining a separation between personal data from different data controllers, and between controlled and domestic use of personal data – i.e. that data can only be used for Club business (inc SPF Directory lists etc..)
• Organisers of inter-Club and similar events will need to review their entry conditions to ensure that any third party entrant confirms explicit consent for the organiser to hold personal data about the photographers entered to the event – e.g. To cover a Club Photographer’s work entered by a Competition Secretary into an Inter-Club/SPF/PAGB competition (and that the SPF may also re –enter into a PAGB/Celtic Challenge event)
• Federations/Clubs must not make their membership contact information available for electronic marketing. Clubs must refuse any request to cascade marketing material to members by electronic messages - For clarification and as an example of what’s allowed; the e-flash, e-news and e-salon contain details about SPF events etc; this is not classed as electronic marketing so you are free to disseminate it to your members, although you are wise to get permission to send any such information to their email address. Extract from PAGB Advice; Marketing material would not include information to members about events directly related to a Federations/Club’s activities.

Below are the main accronyms connected with us and our events -

• SPF - Scottish Photographic Federation
• PAGB - Photographic Alliance of Great Britain - visit the PAGB's website for the acronyms of all PAGB member Federations (click here)
• FIAP - Federation Internationale de l'Art Photographique
• GPU - Global Photographic Union (Formerly UPI) (Scottish Salon only)
• PSA - Photographic Society of America (Scottish Salon only)
• RPS - Royal Photographic Society

From the above, this should help you with additional abbreviations used by these organisations or us e.g. EFIAP belonging to FIAP, and MPAGB belonging to PAGB. This should also help you decide which area of this website you will find details about these.

Others you may come across -

• BPE - British Photographic Exhibitions
• UPP - United Photographic Postfolios of Great Britain
• GDPU - Glasgow District Photographic Union