'Disappointing' test purchase statistics

July 27, 2007: Over the course of just under a year, up to June 2006, 151 licensed premises out of 916 in the Fife area of Scotland failed a test purchase check, according to figures released by the police.

And nine of these premises failed a second test purchase check, according to the figures, which were released in response to a Freedom of Information request from the Scottish Beer and Pub Association (SBPA).

Of the 151 first failures, 76 of these related to on-sales licensed premises (out of 445 premises visited) and 75 to off-sales premises (out of 471). The failure rate for on-sales premises was therefore 17%, and 16% for off-sales premises.

Patrick Browne, chief executive of the SBPA — whose members account for 1,500 of Scotland's 5,100 licensed public houses — said: "These figures are disappointing, but much better than comparable figures for the rest of the UK, which is surprising given that the Fife pilot scheme was the first time that test purchasing of alcohol has been used in Scotland.

"The fact that the failure rate for licensed premises dropped to under 1% after they had already failed once shows that licensees did their best to learn the lessons of the test purchasing exercise and tightened up their procedures."

However, the SBPA still believes there is a lack of clarity in the test
purchasing exercise, given admissions by the police very late in the pilot
scheme that they did not test purchase in restaurants or certain hotels.

"The figures from Fife police suggest that they only test purchased in 765 of
Fife's 1,090 licensed premises, meaning that three in ten of Fife's licensed
premises were not subject to any test purchasing at all, despite indications
from Fife police that 'all' of Fife's licensed premises would be subject to
test purchasing in order to be fair to all licensees.," said Mr Browne.

"SBPA will continue to work with its members to ensure they fulfil their responsibilities to make sure they sell alcohol responsibly and in accordance with the law when test purchasing of alcohol is rolled out across Scotland over the next few months."

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