Does Health and Safety legislation apply to volunteers working for charities?

Where any organisation has at least one paid employee, it is considered to be an 'employer' for the purposes of the HSW Act and the regulations made under it.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (ISBN 0717624889 - available from HSE Books) place a duty on both employers and the self-employed to assess the risks to employees and anyone else (e.g. voluntary workers, clients and customers) who may be affected by the work activities being undertaken. As a result of this assessment, appropriate preventive and protective measures have to be taken to reduce the risks identified if they are not being adequately controlled at present. Some of the regulations listed later describe specific protective and preventive measures that have to be taken in certain circumstances or when undertaking particular activities.

In general, the same health and safety standards should be applied to voluntary workers as they would to employees exposed to the same risks. However, if the risk assessment shows that the risks to voluntary workers are different, the preventive and protective measures taken should reflect the different risks.
HSE considers it good practice for a volunteer user to provide the same level of health and safety protection as they would in an employer/employee relationship, irrespective of whether there are strict legal duties.

The HSE has published a guidence publication, HSG192, Charity and voluntary workers : a guide to health and safety at work, (ISBN 0717624242 - available from HSE Books).