Background

Launched at the 2006 ABO Conference, the aim of the Charter is to set an industry-wide standard of care and award Charter Marks to orchestras that are displaying good practice towards the physical, mental and emotional health of employees - both orchestral musicians and their management.

The Charter has been designed to give an indication of the different areas that orchestras ought to consider, including rehearsal and performance conditions, venue facilities and management responsibility.

Relaunch

In 2010, after the first three years, the Charter was independently evaluated by Annabel Jackson Associates. Following that evaluation and some of the recommendations contained in the report, the Association of British Orchestras and the Musicians Benevolent Fund, together with the independent adjudicators began a process of revising and revalidating the Charter. It was launched in its updated form in May 2011.

The Charter is non-competitive and awards are based on how successful each applicant’s practices, policies, procedures and facilities are in achieving the highest standards possible within their means for protecting the occupational health and safety of their employees.

Whilst inevitably there are some specific areas of risk that are more pertinent to orchestral musicians, the Charter is fundamentally about the promotion and protection of a healthy lifestyle and ensuring that all musicians and managers are fit and healthy to perform and present world class orchestral music.

Benefits

With increasingly demanding performance schedules both at home and abroad the Healthy Orchestra Charter is an ideal mechanism to:

• provide an opportunity and resources to enable orchestras to consider all aspects of health and safety promotion
• help motivate occupational health and safety performance improvement in orchestras by providing a rising scale of targets to aim for
• provide a means of recognising and celebrating occupational health and safety achievement within the orchestral sector
• provide a series of exemplars of good practice, as positive role models for other orchestras to learn from and emulate

Achieving a Charter Mark will:

• provide a benchmark for accomplishment and set an agenda for continuous improvement
• help motivate staff and freelance musicians that you employ on a regular basis to raise health and safety awareness within your orchestra
• through positive PR gain recognition with promoters, suppliers, insurers, the media, trades unions and other stakeholder and partner organizations

Award levels

The Charter will offer three levels of achievement – Bronze, Silver and Gold. Organisations must achieve one level before proceeding to the next. Charter Marks are awarded for a period of three years.

The Bronze Charter Mark will be awarded to organisations demonstrating an understanding of the health of their managers and musicians by meeting a set of fundamental standards that show a commitment to good practice.

The Silver Charter Mark will be awarded to Bronze Award holders who are able to demonstrate to an assessor during a visit to the organisation that in addition to practising the procedures they presented as Bronze applicants, they excel in the particular areas of the Charter, and that Occupational Health and all relevant Health & Safety considerations have become an integral part of the organisational culture.

Finally, the Gold Charter Mark will be awarded by the assessment panel to Silver Award holders who have launched an outstanding new initiative in the fields of occupational health or health & safety with measurable benefits, which leads the way in the development of the sector’s practice, sets new standards of care and contributes to the body of knowledge.