The impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on levels of crime and disorder
An evaluation
The Licensing Act 2003 came into effect on the 24th November 2005 and abolished set licensing laws in England and Wales. The aim was to liberalise a rigid system whilst reducing the problems of drinking and disorder associated with a standard closing time. This evaluation analysed recorded crime data in five case study areas. This was supplemented by survey data from local residents about their perceptions of crime and qualitative interviews with regulators and representatives from night time economy businesses. The findings suggest the overall volume of incidents of crime and disorder remains unchanged, though there are signs that crimes involving serious violence have reduced. There is, however, temporal displacement, in that the small proportion of violent crime occurring in the small hours of the morning has increased. Police, local authorities and licensees generally welcomed the new powers and the Act’s partnership philosophy.
Title: The impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on levels of crime and disorder: An evaluation
Authors: Mike Hough, Gillian Hunter, Jessica Jacobson, Stefano Cossalter (ICPR, King’s College London)
Series: Home Office Research Report 04/08
Number of pages: 25 (plus appendices)
Date published: March 2008
Availability: Download main report 
PDF 312Kb
Download executive summary PDF 85Kb
Download main recommendations PDF 77Kb
Download Appendix A: Tables and charts for the case study areas PDF 155Kb
Download Appendix B: Technical report PDF 128Kb
Summary
The Licensing Act 2003, introduced in November 2005, abolished set licensing hours in England and Wales. Opening hours of premises are now set locally through the conditions of individual licences. The aim was to liberalise a rigid system whilst reducing the problems of heavy drinking and disorder associated with a standard closing time. The intention was not simply to relax drinking hours but to provide licensing authorities with new powers and to encourage better partnership working. It was hoped that in the longer term, the Act – in combination with national and local alcohol strategies – would also help bring about a ‘sensible drinking’ culture which attached less value to heavy drinking and drunkenness as ends in themselves.
The Act has been the subject of much controversy. Although its aim was speciically to address problems associated with late- night drinking, in the run-up to implementation it was presented by some of the media as a drunkard’s charter, whereby alcohol would be on sale 24 hours a day. There was concern both about the public health impact of the new licensing regime and about its effects on crime and disorder. The Home Ofice put into place a multi-strand evaluation, focusing largely on the Act’s impact on crime and disorder. The various elements include:
- a statistical exercise covering 30 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales
- a national telephone survey of police licensing officers
- findings from the British Crime Survey (BCS) Night Time Economy module covering periods before and after implementation
- detailed case studies of the experience of 5 towns and cities
This report pulls together the key indings from these various strands. It also draws on previously published material on the Act, notably Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) statistics, HM Revenue and Customs statistics as published by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), a survey of demands on Accident & Emergency (A&E) hospital services and a national survey of local authorities. To place the indings in context, the research team also mounted an international review of the relevant academic literature on alcohol related crime and how to manage the night time economy. Collectively, the different strands of the evaluation can describe trends in alcohol- related crime and disorder in the periods before and after the Act’s implementation. What the evaluation cannot do, however, is to answer counterfactual questions about the direction that trends would have taken, had the Act not been implemented.
The 2003 Licensing Act
The problems created by standardised pub closing times were a source of concern for many years. On the one hand, the simple fact of a closing time was thought to encourage some drinkers to drink as much as they could whilst they could. On the other, standardised closing times meant that across the country large numbers of - mainly young - people in various states of drunkenness were decanted into open public space and onto public transport simultaneously.
The Licensing Act 2003 passed the responsibility for licensing from Magistrates’ Courts to local authorities. It simplified the licensing law by introducing a single premises licence – covering the provision of alcohol, regulated entertainment and refreshments late at night – in place of the six types of licence that previously existed. Crucially it replaced the statutory licensing hours with opening hours set locally through the conditions of individual licences. It also gave the licensing authorities new powers over licensees, and encouraged partnership-working between the local authority, the police and others
The new licensing authorities were expected to grant the licences requested by licensees unless there were well-founded objections that doing so was inconsistent with the Act’s four licensing objectives:
- to prevent crime and disorder
- to promote public safety
- to prevent public nuisance.
Although it was the abolition of standardised licensing hours that gave rise to fears about ‘24-hour drinking’, the aim was to liberalise a rigid system whilst reducing the problems of rapid drinking and disorder associated with a standard closing time. Staggered pub and club closing hours were intended to avoid the closing time melées that created such problems. It was also hoped that the move away from limited, standardised drinking hours would discourage excessive drinking and encourage a more relaxed, southern European-style drinking culture, over the longer term.
Impact on licensing hours and consumption
Overall, there was a modest increase in opening hours. According to a DCMS snapshot survey of a small number of licensing authorities conducted shortly after the changes, only a very small minority of pubs and clubs applied for 24-hour licences. A fifth stuck with their old 11pm closing time, and half applied for an hour’s extension to midnight. The remaining 30% opted for 1am closing. These times represented the latest that establishments could serve alcohol. Some licensees exercised this right only rarely and others used the extension as a ‘winding down’ period. The most recent DCMS statistics indicate that only 470 pubs, bars and nightclubs have 24-hour licences. An analysis of closing times commissioned by the DCMS in November 2007 found that most licensed premises continued to close at 11pm and the rest extended their opening hours by half an hour or an hour. Actual closing times across all types of establishment were extended on average by 21 minutes.
The British Crime Survey (BCS) Night Time Economy module suggests that there has been no change in frequency of pub usage. There are indications that some people now drink later into the night – as one would expect given that some premises are staying open for longer – though according to two YouGov surveys conducted for the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) more than four out of 5 of the population think that the new provisions have not encouraged them to change their drinking patterns. The General Household Survey, which includes self-report data on alcohol consumption, suggests that the average amount of alcohol consumed per person fell slightly between 2005 and 2006. BBPA statistics derived from HM Revenue & Customs (based on excise duty returns) also show that the fall in alcohol consumption in licensed premises that began in 2005 continued into 2006.
Impact on levels of alcohol-related crime and disorder: the national picture
In July 2007, the Home Ofice published indings from an analysis of data collected from a self-selecting sample of police forces. Comparing the 12-month periods before and after the change, the survey of 30 police forces shows a 1% fall in recorded incidents involving violence, criminal damage and harassment, and a fall of 5% in serious violent crimes. The timing of incidents of crime and disorder has changed, however. There was a 1% rise in the overall number of incidents occurring between 6pm and 6am, and a steep rise in the small minority of incidents occurring in the small hours (3am or later). Thus for the – well-measured – category of more serious crimes of violence, there was an increase in the number of offences committed between 3am and 6am that was small in absolute terms (236 incidents) but large in proportionate terms (25%). The peak time for serious violent crime shifted forward by about an hour.
The 30-force survey showed an overall 7% increase in recorded harassment offences in the year after the change, but this is best interpreted as a consequence of the deployment of new police powers, notably the ability to issue penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) which are a tool used by the police to tackle low level offending and anti-social behaviour, including drunken and rowdy behaviour.
Although some studies showed increases in alcohol-related hospital attendances and ambulance call-outs, a survey of 33 A&E departments across England and Wales found a 2% fall in assault related injury attendances in 2006 compared with 2005, this fall being concentrated amongst women.
According to the BCS Night Time Economy module, there was also no change following the introduction of the Act in the proportion of people feeling unsafe in town centres at night, or in the proportion of people witnessing drunken anti-social behaviour in town centres.
Impact on levels of alcohol-related crime and disorder: the five case studies
In the first year of the new licensing regime, overall problems of crime and disorder did not increase. In aggregate, the 5 case study sites show little change. Overall, violent crime fell by 3%; this masked increases in three sites – statistically signiicant in only one – offset by falls in the other two sites. Calls to the police relating to disorder either did not change or showed statistically signiicant reductions – with the exception of a signiicant increase in one site in the latter part of 2006. There is evidence of temporal displacement: in four out of 5 sites there was a fall in levels of violent crime between 11pm and midnight; and the small proportion of violent crimes occurring between 3am and 5am grew in the year after the change. Although we cannot know for certain it seems likely that this is a consequence of the extension of licensing hours.
The evaluation assembled information either from hospital A&E departments or from ambulance services for the 5 case study sites. The data appear volatile, and trends are often inconsistent with those found in police data. Trends were stable in 2 sites and marginally upward in a further 2. Relevant episodes at the A&E department in the fifth site doubled, however. Violent crimes recorded by the police in this site also increased in 2006 – though not as steeply as A&E incidents.
Residents surveyed in 3 out of 5 case study sites were less likely to say that drunk and rowdy behaviour was a problem after the change than before it, and the majority in all 5 sites thought that alcohol-related crime was stable or declining. Generally, people working in the night-time economy and those involved in its regulation generally thought that alcohol-related problems had remained stable or declined.
How does our experience match with other countries?
The evidence from those countries that have moved from strict opening hours to a more relaxed regime, such as Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Iceland, is that liberalised regimes tend to result in higher levels of consumption and more alcohol-related problems of crime and disorder. It may be that the scale of the change in England and Wales to date has been much smaller than in these jurisdictions. Equally, parallel initiatives to promote sensible drinking and to manage the night time economy may have counterbalanced pressures for heavier drinking and associated problems. It is also possible that marked effects of the change will emerge only over a longer period.
Conclusion
Whilst some indicators point in different directions, the overall conclusion to be drawn from the evaluation is that in their irst year the changes introduced by the 2003 Licensing Act had only small effects on the opening hours of most pubs and clubs, on levels of alcohol consumption and on alcohol-related problems of crime and disorder. Some crime has been displaced into the small hours, but overall levels of crime associated with the night-time economy remain largely unchanged, and there has also been a small fall in serious crimes of violence – possibly as a consequence of the extension of licensing hours
Getting a copy
You can view The impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on levels of crime and disorder: An evaluation and associated appendices on the Home Office RDS website.
Last update: Tuesday, March 04, 2008