Safety certificate condition and evidence tracker
Problem
The venue's safety certificate, issued by the local authority under the Green Guide, lists conditions: a current fire risk assessment, electrical test certificates, a structural inspection report, an approved stewarding plan. The certificate itself sits in a folder in the safety officer's office. The documents proving each condition still holds sit wherever the department that owns them last put them: an email attachment, a drawer, a contractor's portal login nobody at the club still has. When the local authority asks for evidence ahead of a review, or a safety visit lands with two weeks' notice, someone spends days phoning around asking whether the electrical certificate is still in date. One lapsed certificate found at that point puts the safety certificate itself, and matchday capacity, in question.
Product idea
A tracker scoped to what actually sits behind the safety certificate. Each supporting certificate or condition is entered once with an expiry date, an owner and a renewal contact. A calendar view shows what falls due in the next 30, 60 and 90 days. Automatic email escalation goes to the named owner and the safety officer at 30 days, again at 7, and again if a certificate lapses unrenewed. When a review is called, one button assembles the current set of valid certificates into a single document pack instead of a scramble through email. It does not manage the certificate application itself and does not judge whether a condition is met; a person still decides that.
Who it is for
Safety officers who own the safety certificate relationship with the local authority, heads of security who supply stewarding and access conditions, and accreditation managers who hold the contractor certificates the safety officer depends on.
Possible first version
A register of certificate and condition entries covering name, category, owner, expiry date and an attached document. A list and calendar view sorted by nearest expiry. Email escalation at 30, 7 and 0 days to the named owner and the safety officer. A one-click export packaging current attachments and their expiry dates into a single PDF pack. Version one has no connection to any door or access control system and no automatic pull from contractor portals; every certificate is entered and attached by hand.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Safety officer, Head of security, Accreditation manager
- Relevant to
- Venue & stadium operator, Professional club, League office
- Systems in play
- Spreadsheets, HR and contractor records, Email
- Product framing
- Manage compliance
Questions we get asked
What do we need to have ready before this is any use to us?
A list of the conditions attached to your safety certificate and, for each one, who owns it and when it was last renewed. That is a conversation, not a data feed. Nothing needs to connect to another system on day one; certificates are attached as documents you already hold, and the register is only as good as that first pass at listing what actually underpins the certificate.
The safety officer already keeps a spreadsheet for this. What does this add?
A spreadsheet does not email anyone when a certificate is 30 days out, and it does not survive the safety officer being on leave when a review is called. It also cannot assemble an evidence pack on demand; someone still has to go and find the documents. The register is doing the same job the spreadsheet does, plus the two things a spreadsheet cannot: escalation and assembly.
Who has to keep this up to date once it exists?
The safety officer owns the register, but the entries themselves are only correct if each department updates its own certificate when it renews, rather than the safety officer chasing it centrally. That handover has to be agreed before build, not assumed. Without it, the register drifts the same way the spreadsheet it replaced did.
Does this tell us whether we are actually compliant with our safety certificate?
No. It tracks whether the documents behind each condition exist and are in date; it does not interpret the Green Guide or decide whether a condition is genuinely met. That judgement stays with the safety officer and the local authority. The tool's job is making sure nothing lapses unnoticed, not signing off compliance.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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