Public Health & Alcohol Licensing Study – An Overview
Principal Investigator: Prof. Karen Lock, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Co-investigators: Dr. Joanna Reynolds & Dr. Matt Egan, LSHTM; Dr. Ghazaleh Pashmi & Dr. Matthew Andrews, Safe Sociable London Partnership; Dr. Jin Lim, Southwark Council.
The Public Health & Alcohol Licensing (PHAL) study was funded through the NIHR School for Public Health Research, and was conducted between July 2016 and May 2018. The main focus of the study was to explore factors shaping public health practitioners’ involvement in and influence on alcohol licensing processes, in local authorities in Greater London. The study involved ethnographic observation of public health practitioners’ day-to-day licensing work, focus groups and interviews with a range of licensing stakeholders, a survey of public health practitioners and analysis of routine public health data on alcohol licence applications. In total 24 out of 33 London local authorities participated in one or more parts of the study.
Key findings from the study highlight the wide variety of capacity and confidence to contribute to the licensing process across different public health teams in London, ranging from no contribution at all to regular submission of representations against alcohol licence applications. Factors that seem to shape whether and how public health act on alcohol licence applications include:
- different perceptions of the status of public health in the licensing process , both within local authorities and more generally, as reflected in the Licensing Act and licensing objectives;
- different interpretations of the kinds of data that can be used by public health in representations, reflecting different expectations for ‘evidence’ within and across local authorities;
- the level of engagement between public health and other responsible authorities, whereby practitioners engaging regularly with other RAs reported more perceived influence over the licensing process.
While many public health practitioners and other licensing stakeholders were doubtful of the influence public health alone can have on individual licence applications, there were some clear examples of public health influence, often through successful negotiation with applicants before licensing sub-committee hearings. Furthermore, many practitioners see a valuable role for public health in shaping broader licensing policy, such as Statement of Licensing Policy and Cumulative Impact Policies, with some examples of how these policies can in turn be used to support public health representations against individual licence applications.
The findings and recommendations of the PHAL study are presented in a report and pathway graphic available here, and in a paper published in Journal of Public Health, available here.
