Home / Your trade / Pubs and licensed premises
If trading standards asked for your refusals register and staff training records tomorrow, could you put your hand on them? PHW sets up the refusals register, the training records and the DPS support for your premises, and every certificate verifies online.
We build the training records, refusals registers and DPS support material licensed premises need, with certificates that verify online.
For the licensee of a pub, bar, club, off-licence or shop with a premises licence in England and Wales. Take all three or one at a time. Each opens with an implementation guide that sets the order to work in.
The policy, the training and the paperwork a due diligence defence rests on.
In the pack: age verification policy, staff training pack, knowledge test, refusals register, till prompts, signage and proxy sale controls, authorisation and staff declaration, due diligence audit, staff briefings and attendance sheets.
See the pack →A drugs policy, staff who know what to look for and what to do, and a register that shows you acted.
In the pack: drugs policy, staff training pack, knowledge test, incident and seizure register, search and refusal policy, staff briefings and attendance sheets.
See the pack →Who is in charge when the DPS is away, on paper, for a DPS who already holds a personal licence.
In the pack: role and responsibilities policy, staff training pack, knowledge test, delegation and absence register, licence review response and escalation policy, staff briefings and attendance sheets.
See the pack →A defence needs a record that outlasts the shift the training happened on. Every member of staff goes through the same steps, and each step leaves a signed record.
A signed policy for each pack, a signed authorisation for each member of staff, briefing sheets with signatures, the refusals register at the till, the incident and seizure register behind the bar and the delegation and absence register. PHW keeps the evidence file behind each certificate, the test paper, the questioning record and the signed assessment records, for at least two years. A licensing officer or trading standards can check a certificate without asking you to find a filing cabinet.
The legal duties stay with the premises licence holder and the DPS. You still decide who is authorised to sell alcohol. The certificates and records are the evidence you hold for that decision.
The Licensing Act 2003 applies in England and Wales. The wording below is taken from the Acts on legislation.gov.uk.
Section 146 makes it an offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18. The penalty is a fine at level 5 on the standard scale, which has no upper limit for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015.
Section 147A, persistent selling, is an offence for the premises licence holder where alcohol is unlawfully sold to an under 18 on the same premises on two or more different occasions within three consecutive months. A court that convicts the licence holder may suspend the alcohol part of the premises licence for up to three months (section 147B).
Section 146(4) gives a person charged by reason of their own conduct a defence where they believed the individual was 18 or over and either took all reasonable steps to establish age, or nobody could reasonably have suspected from appearance that the individual was under 18. Asking for evidence of age that would have convinced a reasonable person counts as taking all reasonable steps (section 146(5)). Section 146(6) gives a defence where the accused is charged by reason of the act or default of another person and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.
A court looks at what was done, so the evidence matters: a written policy, dated training records, staff sign-off and a completed refusals register. A manager saying staff know the rules is not evidence of what was done.
Section 8 makes it an offence for an occupier, or a person concerned in the management of premises, to knowingly permit or suffer any of these on the premises: producing or attempting to produce a controlled drug, supplying or attempting to supply one or offering to supply one, preparing opium for smoking, or smoking cannabis, cannabis resin or prepared opium.
On a review of a premises licence, section 52 of the Licensing Act 2003 lets the licensing authority modify the conditions, exclude a licensable activity, remove the DPS, suspend the licence for up to three months or revoke it.
Challenge 25, asking anyone who looks under 25 for photographic ID, is industry best practice. The age of 25 is your own policy to adopt.
The individual named on your premises licence as the premises supervisor.
Section 19 puts two conditions on a premises licence that authorises the supply of alcohol. First, no alcohol may be supplied when there is no designated premises supervisor, or when the DPS does not hold a personal licence or that licence is suspended. Second, every supply of alcohol must be made or authorised by a person who holds a personal licence.
Carrying on a licensable activity otherwise than under and in accordance with the licence is an offence under section 136: up to six months in prison, or a fine, or both, on summary conviction.
A DPS must hold a personal licence, and whoever serves while the DPS is away needs a personal licence holder to have authorised them. The DPS support pack puts the DPS role, each named deputy's training, the delegation and absence register and your response to a licence review on paper, for the DPS who already holds a personal licence.
The everyday work behind the bar also carries legal duties.
Line-cleaning chemicals and cellar gas come under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (regulation 7: prevent exposure or adequately control it). Changing and moving kegs comes under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (regulation 4: avoid the lift where reasonably practicable, otherwise assess it).
Five yes or no questions on what trading standards, the police or a licensing officer can ask to see at your premises. You get your answer on the screen.
Take the one-minute checkTell us your premises, which packs you want and how many staff, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
Get a quote