BII Deeply Disappointed By KPMG Report
31-Jul-2008
John McNamara chief executive of BII, the professional body for the licensed retail sector, added his comments to the groundswell of anger and disappointment at the recently published findings of the KPMG study into the licensed trade’s Social Responsibility Standards document.
“As one of the signatories to the standards document, we take issue with the general conclusions drawn by the KPMG consultants that it is not working.
“The report does acknowledge that BII directly references the standards document as part of the syllabus of several of our accredited qualification schemes. However, collectively, our industry has yet again taken an unfair bashing.
“The report is more ‘tittle-tattle’ than based on hard evidence and we are deeply disappointed at the anecdotal nature of the fieldwork and the lack of appreciation of the great strides we have taken. Indeed, it ignores the many positive things that the industry is doing to promote social responsibility and the ways in which underage sales and other issues around the responsible serving of alcohol have been tackled.
“BII has over 45,000 provisional and permanent members who each sign up to a code of conduct. As the professional body for the sector, we make every effort to ensure that social responsibility permeates everything we do and this can be evidenced in a number of ways:
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We offer an extensive portfolio of accredited qualifications for the industry, which support compliance with the law for licensees and bar staff, help build better businesses and are delivered through over 600 approved training centres in the UK
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Over 1.5 million qualifications have been processed since 1992
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Members take an active role in Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships
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We have implemented a highly successful ‘Schools Project’, which includes the Level 1 Certificate in Alcohol Awareness
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We award qualifications for staff serving alcohol in all types of licensed premises in England and Wales called the Level 1 Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing and, in Scotland, the Scottish Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing
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We award qualifications for licensing boards and licensing practitioners
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We were instrumental in leading the DCMS national advisory group sub-committee in creating the syllabus for the National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH)
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We led the Scottish Government consultation to develop the syllabus for Scottish Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (SCPLH)
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We are on the board of the Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS)
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We have recently taken over the administration and expansion of the Best Bar None Scheme, in conjunction with the Home Office and other stakeholders
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We contributed to the setting up of a code of conduct for door supervisors and were part of the initial steering group to define training requirements for licensing
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We created the BIIBAS benchmarking scheme for pub company codes of practice
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We actively engage in many partner relationships with key national influencers and activists, such as UK Youth, the Home Office, National Pubwatch, Pub is the Hub and the National Licensing Forum, and we are involved in many other local initiatives.
“The raison d'ętre of the standards document is to pull together the codes of practice and operating standards in place cross the industry. We refute the findings that the standards have made no difference. We contend that the opposite is true and we will be submitting the comments detailed in this statement in the form of a letter to the Home Secretary at the Home Office and Secretary of State at the Department of Health.”
| michellel@bii.org | |
| Contact | Michelle Luscombe Corporate Communications Manager 01276 417863 |
