APPENDIX: SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Draft Local Authorities (Alcohol Disorder Zones)
Regulations 2008
Letter from the Alcohol Strategy Unit, Home Office;
Manchester City Centre Safe Statistics
Alcohol Disorder Zones
Following our telephone conversation last week, please
find attached below the revised paragraphs re the Manchester City
Centre Safe Scheme for insertion in the Regulatory Impact Assessment.
In updating these paragraphs, we asked Greater Manchester
Police (GMP) to provide further data on the numbers of serious
assaults in the city centre since the scheme was established in
1999/ 2000.
This data shows that the reduction in serious assaults
between 1999/ 2000 and 2000/ 2001 was 6.2%, not 8.5% as stated
in the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy and quoted in paragraph
5.6 of the Regulatory Impact Assessment. GMP have advised us that
they believe that this was due to an administrative error and
I apologise for any confusion this may have caused. The reduction
in serious assaults of 12.3% between 2000/01 and 2001/ 2002, is
correct.
The additional data provided by GMP in response to
your query does, however, provide additional evidence of the benefits
of the Manchester City Centre Safe Scheme. The fall in the number
of serious assaults between 1999/ 2000 and 2004/ 2005 is equivalent
to an average of approximately 12% per year.
Revised paragraphs for RIA
Option three: Introduce Alcohol Disorder Zones
5.8 The main benefit of an ADZ would be the reduction
in the costs to criminal justice and healthcare agencies, and
victims, of alcohol-related crime and disorder. Linked to this
would be longer-term benefits to businesses which are more difficult
to quantify. These include increased custom for licensed premises
as the area's reputation improves and peoples' fear of crime lessens.
The action planning process would be likely to encourage the setting
up of Business Improvement Districts or voluntary contribution
schemes, which would secure a longer-term financial investment
from businesses towards improvements to the local environment.
5.9 Each local authority, together with the police
(probably the CDRP in practice) would set its own targets for
the reduction of alcohol-related crime, and expected outputs at
the start of the action planning process. These would be based
on the CDRP's assessment of the exact nature of the problem and
the expected impact of the actions in the action plan. Licensed
premises would have to make substantial progress towards implementing
the actions in the plan in order to avoid the imposition of charges.
Charges imposed on all premises in the ADZ whose principal purpose
is to sell alcohol would be subject to a quarterly review of their
continued appropriateness. An ADZ would only be lifted once substantial
progress had been made towards tackling the problem of alcohol-related
crime and disorder.
5.10 The Manchester City Centre Safe experience
gives us a useful benchmark from which to predict the likely benefits
of an ADZ. City Centre Safe is characterised by a partnership
approach to solving the problems of alcohol-related disorder.
For example, the police run a 'top ten' list of premises with
high levels of crime:
"Once the list has been compiled, each of the
top ten licensees are sent a letter outlining their position in
the Top 10, and inviting them to attend a meeting at the police
station.
This information is then presented to the licensee
and area manager or company director at a meeting. A course of
action is then agreed with the licensee to tackle the specific
crimes within each of the ten venues. The agreed action is then
sent to the licensee and area manager/company director in written
form, with a copy for the licensee to sign and return to City
Centre Safe indicating full compliance with the scheme.
The premises will then enter into a three month monitoring
period where the crime and incident levels will be examined…
At the end of the monitoring period, the crime and disorder figures
would be compared with the previous quarter to evaluate the impact
the action plan has had upon the crime figures. The action plan
may be reviewed at any time during the three month period, but
in any case at the end of the three month period."[4]
5.11 As a result of this approach, which also
includes an accreditation scheme for well-run premises, and full
use of enforcement tools by the police and Trading Standards,
the level of serious assaults in Manchester City Centre was reduced
by 46% between 1999/ 2000 when the scheme was established and
2004/ 05 (the last year for which comparable data is available)
[5]
| Year | Number of serious assaults in the City Centre
| Percentage change on previous year
|
| 1999/ 2000 | 225
| N/A |
| 2000/ 01 | 211
| - 6.2 |
| 2001/ 02 | 185
| - 12.3 |
| 2002/ 03 | 198
| + 7.0 |
| 2003/ 04 | 186
| - 6.1 |
| 2004/ 05 | 122
| - 34.4 |
The temporary rise in the number of serious assaults
in 2002/ 03 may be due to the fact that the Commonwealth Games
and World Cup were both held in that year. The fall in the number
of serious assaults over five years is equivalent to an average
of approximately 12% per year.
5.12 Based on the experience in Manchester we
estimate that ADZs, which would have a greater focus on public
space issues, would lead to a reduction in all alcohol-related
crimes (including more serious wounding, less serious wounding
and common assault) of around 10% over a year.
5.13 We split our example ADZs into three tiers
based on the type of area. To estimate our benefits we chose Manchester
to represent those in Tier 1 (likely to be large city centres).
Peterborough represents Tier 2 ADZs (city and large town centres),
whilst Lichfield represents those ADZs in small towns (or very
small cities).
5.14 We then obtained police-recorded crime data
from the Crime Statistics website for the example areas on more
serious wounding, less serious wounding and common assault. To
compensate for the fact that only a proportion of crimes are reported
to the police, we used the BCS multiplier of 1.79 for wounding
and 7.7 for common assault to estimate the actual levels of these
crimes. We then accounted for the fact that not all violent crime
is due to alcohol[6].
5.15 We then used the cost per crime as estimated
by the Home Office[7].
For common assault and less serious wounding the cost is £1,400
per crime and for more serious wounding the cost is £8,800.
This includes the emotional cost to victims.[8]
Due to changes in the titles of offences we know that the cost
associated with common assault is likely to be an overestimate,
whilst the costs associated with both wounding categories are
underestimates.
5.16 We estimate that about 30 areas will start
the ADZ process in the first year.
5.17 We applied the 10% reduction in these crime
types that we might reasonably expect per area. Based on an assumption
of how many ADZs might fall into each tier, we estimate that there
will be overall benefits of £28 million.
15 January 2008
Letter from the Local Government Association;
Alcohol Disorder Zones
Introduction
The Local Government Association (LGA) and the Local
Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) were
grateful for the opportunity to participate in the consultation
process for the Alcohol Disorder Zone policy. However, it must
be noted that the majority of the concerns presented by the LGA
and LACoRS have not been addressed.
Background
The Government has proposed to empower local authorities
in England and Wales to designate particular areas as Alcohol
Disorder Zones (ADZs). Local authorities are then able to charge
certain holders of alcohol premises licences and club premises
certificates located within the ADZ for additional local authority
and police enforcement activity.
LGA key messages
Alcohol Disorder Zones are designed as a measure
of last resort in attempting to reduce alcohol-related crime and
disorder issues stemming from licensed premises. While ADZs may
seem like an attractive option for local authorities to use, in
practice, ADZs will prove to be a costly, complicated and an unwieldy
tool for local authorities.
In particular, the major concern expressed by the
LGA is the costs involved in preparing and implementing an ADZ
and the additional burdens involved in attempting to recover these
costs.
Specific concern - Recovering ADZ charges
While the threat of designating an area to be an
ADZ may prompt the desired solution, there is eight weeks of preparatory
work that must be undertaken by the local authority before an
ADZ can be designated. The cost for preparing an ADZ is not recoverable
as charges only relate to the time period when an ADZ is actively
in force which economically penalises local authorities.
If the licensed premises that are subject to the
proposed ADZ start to comply with the Action Plan within the eight
weeks of preparatory work, the ADZ may not be imposed. However,
the local authorities are left with no recourse to recover the
costs for the preparatory work that they have carried out.
The LGA and LACoRS view is that local authorities
must be able to charge for work undertaken in relation to the
Action Plan and other pre- ADZ steps.
As local authorities are responsible for collecting
ADZ charges, it is unclear if the LA is responsible for paying
other parties involved in the process, such as agencies responsible
for monitoring noise standards, health and safety regulations
and trading standards, for the costs they incur irrespective of
whether the charge is paid by the licensed premises. The amount
of premises that are exempted or partially-exempted from ADZ charges
also means that the true cost of ADZs will never be recovered.
The LGA and LACoRS are also concerned that the time
taken to implement an ADZ is lengthy and the steps required are
cumbersome for local authorities. A 28-day consultation period,
then an eight-week period to take steps to implement the Action
plan is required, then the local authority must then wait until
two months after invoicing the premises for ADZ charges before
they can suspend the premises licence for non-payment of ADZ charges.
This process will result in a license suspension five months after
the initial actions that initiated the implementation of the ADZ.
Next steps
While the LGA and LACoRS hold serious misgivings
about this policy, the LGA and LACoRS will commit to work with
the Home Office to ensure that the ADZ guidance produced for local
authorities is completely unambiguous. This will help to ensure
that when local authorities are faced with no other option but
to impose an ADZ upon the licensed premises in a designated area
of their community, they can do so within clearly defined parameters.
10 December 2007
4 Manchester City Centre Safe, Top Ten Policy Document,
December 2004. Back
5
Greater Manchester Police recorded crime statistics Back
6
British Crime Survey 2003-4 Back
7
Dubourg, W R, Hamed, J and Thorns, J, 'Estimates of the economic
and social costs of crime in England and Wales: Costs of crime
against individuals and households, 2003/4', RDS Online Report,
London: Home Office, forthcoming. Back
8
Dubourg, W R, Hamed, J and Thorns, J, 'Estimates of the economic
and social costs of crime in England and Wales: Costs of crime
against individuals and households, 2003/4', RDS Online Report,
London: Home Office, forthcoming, p 18 Back
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