Adventure Activity Licensing Authority – Changes 1st April 2020

After twenty four years the contractor that has run the Adventure Activity Licensing Service, TQS, is standing down at the end of March. Our thanks go to Marcus Baillie and his team for all our joint work over the years.

Adventure Risk Management Services (Adv-RMS) will takeover on 1 April 2020. We are looking forward to working with Tim Morton of Adv-RMS, who is currently employed as Deputy Head of Inspection at TQS.

HSE will take over the administrative function of AALA and will be the main point of contact for all providers. Every application, report and decision will come through HSE and all enquiries and complaints will be handled by HSE.

All first-time applicants will receive a site visit. Renewal applicants can expect a site visit too. However, if a provider seeking renewal can demonstrate competence, compliance and commitment to maintaining robust Health and Safety management systems through their application, and the inspector is of the opinion that a site visit is unnecessary to verify this, inspectors can recommend a licence is granted without visiting.

Providers will still be able to ask for advice during the application process, but the inspector should not be regarded as an additional technical advisor or ongoing consultancy service.

What isn’t changing?

• The scope of adventure activities covered
• The reach of the legislation
• The licence fee
• The standards to be met in order to obtain a licence

More information will be available soon on the AALA website.

John Cousins
Chief Executive Officer - MTUKI