Play equipment standards are frequently invoked and rarely read, which is understandable given that they are technical documents that cost money to obtain. The result is a widespread and convenient misunderstanding about what compliance means.
This piece is an attempt to state the scope accurately, which involves saying both more and less than a venue's website usually does.
The ones we can name with confidence
There are standards we are confident of, by number and title, and we name those. Everywhere else on this site a standard is described by what it does rather than given a number we are not certain about, and that policy is set out on our editorial standards page.
BS EN 1176 is the playground equipment and surfacing series. It is a family of parts rather than a single document, covering general safety requirements and then particular types of equipment.
BS EN 1176-10 is the part covering fully enclosed play equipment. That is the part most relevant to an indoor soft play frame, because a soft contained play structure is exactly what it describes.
BS EN 1176-11 covers spatial networks, the three dimensional rope climbing structures that appear in larger centres and in adventure settings.
BS EN 1177 covers impact attenuating playground surfacing and the method used to determine what fall height a surface is suitable for. The concept it carries into everyday use is critical fall height.
PAS 5000 is the BSI specification for the construction and operation of fixed indoor trampoline parks. It is the exception in this list, because it explicitly covers operation as well as construction.
BS EN 12572 covers artificial climbing structures.
You can obtain any of these from the British Standards Institution. They are not free, which is a real barrier for a parent, but the scope statements are public.
| Document | What it governs | What it does not touch |
|---|---|---|
| BS EN 1176 series | Design, construction, materials, geometry and inspection of playground equipment | Staffing, cleaning, session structure, food, door control, parties |
| BS EN 1176-10 | Fully enclosed play equipment, which is what a soft play frame is | How many people are in the frame or who is watching them |
| BS EN 1177 | Impact attenuating surfacing and the fall height a surface suits | Whether the surfacing is still in that condition today |
| PAS 5000 | Construction and operation of fixed indoor trampoline parks | Any other format; it is specific to trampoline parks |
| BS EN 12572 | Artificial climbing structures | Belay procedure, harness checks and who supervises the wall |
| Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 | The general duty to protect employees and the public so far as reasonably practicable | Any technical specification for equipment |
| Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 | The requirement to assess risk, and to record it where there are five or more employees | What the assessment must conclude, which is for the venue |
A working frame put together by this desk from published guidance and from the plain wording of the standards named on the page. It is not a survey, not a measurement and not drawn from any venue.
What a standard is actually doing
An equipment standard describes properties of an object: dimensions, gaps, materials, loadings, entrapment risks, the geometry of openings, the requirements for surfacing beneath, and the inspection regime the equipment should be subject to.
It is written for designers, manufacturers, installers and inspectors. It is a technical specification, and it does its job well.
What it is not is a description of how to run a business. It says nothing about how many members of staff should be on the floor, how often the ball pit should be sifted, whether there should be a first aider on site, how the exit should be controlled, what to do about an allergy, how loud the music should be, or whether a party host should count the children between rooms.
Those are all operating questions, and every one of them is more likely to affect your child's afternoon than the gap tolerance on a net panel.
What fills the gap
The operating half is governed by health and safety law rather than by product standards. The general duty comes from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which requires an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of employees and of people affected by the business, which includes customers.
The mechanism is risk assessment. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks, and require it to be recorded where the employer has five or more employees. The HSE's guidance on risk assessment sets out what that involves in plain terms.
So the actual structure of the regime is this. The standard tells you the frame is built correctly. The risk assessment is where somebody has thought about the room, the people, the sessions and the day. The second is where almost all of your experience comes from, and it is the document worth asking about. We cover that in the piece on risk assessments.
What a compliance claim means, and does not
When a venue says its equipment is manufactured to BS EN 1176, it is making a claim about the equipment as supplied. That is a genuine and useful claim.
What it is not is a claim that the equipment is currently in the condition it was supplied in, that it has been inspected recently, that it has not been modified, or that the surfacing under it still matches the fall heights above it. Equipment declines, and it is inspection rather than original specification that keeps it sound. That is the subject of the piece on inspection regimes.
Nor is it a claim about anything outside the structure. A frame built to standard, in a building with an uncontrolled exit and nobody on the floor, is a compliant frame in a badly run venue.
- Which standard is the equipment built to, and when was it installed?
- Who carries out your annual inspection and when was the last one?
- Do you have a written risk assessment covering the operation as well as the equipment?
- If your website says approved or certified, by whom and for what?
- Are any of your sessions registered childcare, or is supervision always the accompanying adult's?
Compliance language in advertising
Because compliance sounds impressive, it appears in marketing, and it is worth knowing where the line is.
The CAP Code, administered by the Advertising Standards Authority, requires that marketing communications must not materially mislead and that objective claims must be capable of substantiation. A claim to be built to a named standard is objective and substantiable. A claim to be the safest, or to be fully approved, or to be certified safe without saying by whom and for what, is much less so.
Terms like approved, certified and accredited are worth interrogating, because they invite you to assume a third party has checked something. Sometimes one has. Often what has been checked is narrower than the word implies. The useful follow up question is: approved by whom, and for what exactly.
Where Ofsted does and does not come into it
Parents sometimes ask whether a play centre is inspected by Ofsted. Almost always the answer is no, and the reason is that a play centre is not childcare.
Ofsted registration applies to childcare provision, where a provider takes charge of children in the absence of their parents. In a general session at a commercial play centre, your child remains your responsibility, and the venue is a leisure business rather than a childcare setting.
There are exceptions. A venue running a holiday club where children are left in its care may fall within childcare registration requirements depending on the arrangements. If a venue offers to take your child while you leave the building, that is the point at which the question becomes live, and it is a reasonable one to ask. We look at it in the piece on supervision.
Using all this as a parent
The practical upshot is short. A compliance claim is a floor, not a ceiling, and it covers the equipment rather than the venue. The questions that tell you most are about the operating half: who is on the floor, when the checks were done, when somebody independent last inspected the structure, and what the venue does when something is found.
Those questions are also, conveniently, the ones a well run venue enjoys answering.