Travel squad staffing and duty-of-care ratio simulator

The travel coordinator plans staffing and rooming for a squad trip in a spreadsheet tab, picking a chaperone count that feels right against the duty-of-care policy, which exists as a document nobody reopens once they think they remember it. When the squad list changes close to departure, a late call-up, two withdrawals, an extra player travelling for medical reasons, the staffing ratio is not recalculated. Whether the trip still meets policy is checked informally, if at all, often as a phone call to the safeguarding lead the night before the coach departs. By then, adding a chaperone or a room is expensive, and sometimes none is available. The same scramble happens on every trip because nothing carries the ratio forward from the last one.

A scenario tool built around the same duty-of-care ratio policy the safeguarding lead already applies by hand: age-banded chaperone ratios, room-sharing rules, staff-to-player minimums. The travel coordinator enters or uploads the current squad and staff lists, then adjusts a small number of levers, adding three under-16 players, removing a chaperone, splitting the squad across two flights, and sees immediately whether the plan still holds, how many additional staff or rooms it would need, and where the shortfall sits. It does not book anything and does not hold player documents. Each scenario produces a short summary that can be attached to a booking request or sent to the safeguarding lead for sign-off, so the ratio question gets answered before seats and rooms are committed rather than after.

The saving here comes from recomputation, not from an agent making the call: the tool reapplies the same age-banded ratio and room rules the safeguarding lead already uses by hand every time the squad or staff list changes, instead of the ratio being checked once early and left unchecked as the list moves. What used to be a phone call to the safeguarding lead the night before departure becomes a scenario that can be reviewed calmly, days earlier, because rerunning the check costs nothing once the rules are entered. The safeguarding lead still signs off the plan; what disappears is the manual arithmetic behind each late change.

Travel coordinators building trip staffing plans, team operations managers who commit the budget, and the safeguarding or welfare lead who signs off the ratio, particularly for academy and youth squads.

A single-trip web form: upload or enter the squad and staff lists as CSV, set age-banded ratio rules once, then run scenarios by changing squad size, age mix or staff count. Output is a pass or fail per scenario with the shortfall in staff or rooms shown plainly, exportable as a PDF summary. Version one holds no player documents and does not check passport or visa status. It does not connect to a travel booking platform or a squad management system; scenario inputs are entered by hand each trip.