News

Alcohol Focus Scotland is working to clarify and provide practical advice on the taking a public health approach in licensing.
 
The Licensing Act (Scotland) 2005 contains five underpinning objectives one of which is ‘protecting and improving pubic health’. The others are: preventing crime and disorder; securing public safety; preventing public nuisance; and protecting children from harm. However, ongoing contact with Licensing Boards and Forums shows that it is this public health objective that is the least well understood and where the least action is being taken. This is confirmed by an analysis of current Licensing Board policy statements.
 
All Licensing Boards were due to have reviewed and published revised Licensing Policy Statements by the end of November 2010. An analysis of the 34 (out of 40) publically available Policy Statements in April 2011 showed a wide variance in Boards’ understanding of the evidence of alcohol-related harm and how they interpret and relate this to their policy and decision making.

General statements of concern about the impact of excessive alcohol consumption on health were included by many Boards, and in a few cases a commitment to give due regard to the views of relevant bodies responsible for the protection of public health. In terms of practice, however, the majority of Boards put the onus for protecting and improving public health on actions that individual premises can take, rather than what Boards in their overall capacity can do.

Standard conditions or recommendations of good practice relating to health include: providing information on sensible drinking and units of alcohol (listed in 20 policy statements); policy in place for recognising/dealing with drunk customers (listed in 17 policy statements); providing/promoting soft drinks (listed in 14 policy statements); providing free water (listed in 10 policy statements though already a mandatory condition in the legislation).

In terms of overprovision:

• 25 out of 34 declared there to be no overprovision in their area.
• 7 declared overprovision in one or more localities in their area.
• 1 assessed almost the entire Board area to be overprovided for most licence types.
• 1 declared overprovision for dedicated off-sales.

Boards were not consistent in detailing consultees or statistics used in determining overprovision – 14 gave no information, 14 specifically listed the police as consultees and 4 listed the Licensing Board compared to only 1 listing the NHS and 1 listing the ADP.

In order to better clarify what measures can be taken Alcohol Focus Scotland is convening an expert group to explore and make recommendations on the effective use of public health in licensing. The group is meeting on the 6th of June and includes experts from across the alcohol, public health and licensing fields. International alcohol expert Robin Room will lead a session on the international evidence of the relationship between licensing and alcohol-related harm.

Well known academic James Nicholls will provide a summary of the historical links between licensing and public health, and QC Sir Crispin Agnew will present his opinion on what the Licensing Act enables in terms of public health.

Alcohol Focus will be working with practitioners over the coming months to develop practical advice for Boards, Forums and other stakeholders based on the recommendations from the expert group.