The Partnership Support Programme, run by the Alcohol Strategy Unit identified 50 CDRP areas where they expected to see action to tackle binge drinking and related antisocial behaviour. These areas are being encouraged to engage with their communities about the damaging effects of irresponsible drinking and the action they are taking to address problem areas. A total of £1.5 million has been distributed between the 50 CDRPs for this purpose.
12 selected CDRPs on the partnership support programme have received specialist strategic consultancy to develop sustainable communications plans to engage local communities and tackle people’s perceptions of the issues. The consultancy included research dissemination and feedback, the facilitation of communications workshops and the development of communications strategies. This is supported by ongoing liaison with regional Know Your Limits stakeholders, providing them with promotional materials to run their campaigns about irresponsible drinking and keeping them informed of Home Office activity and news.
We provide support to CDRPs and other stakeholders who have questions and requests about the Know Your Limits campaign. This includes information about materials available to them, using logos and amplifying campaigns locally, advice on the type of communication programme that they could run in their area, as well as general communication guidance and best practice.
The Know Your Limits advertising campaign targets 18 to 24-year-olds to prompt them to reconsider their behaviour around binge drinking. Throughout the summer adverts appeared on websites, radio, TV and in magazines. The cost of media for the financial year 2009-10, excluding production and fees, was £1,661,612.
Additionally, we have funded a number of adult and young people’s alcohol arrest referral projects. These seek to offer a brief intervention to individuals who have been arrested for an offence, and are under the influence of alcohol. A total of £1.6 million has been spent on these arrest referral projects during the financial year 2009-10.
The number of defendants proceeding against at magistrates courts and convicted and fined at all courts in England and Wales, and issued with a penalty notice for disorder for not obeying an instruction to stop drinking in a designated public place in each year from 2006 to 2008 (latest available) can be viewed in the following table. No defendants have received the maximum fine of £500 between 2006 and 2008.
Court proceedings data for 2009 are planned to be published in autumn 2010.
Offence description Number 2006 2007 2008 Failure to obey an instruction to stop alcohol consumption in designated public place (Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, sec. 12) Proceeded against 101 113 4153 Found guilty 73 98 4123 Penalty notice for disorder 1,061 1,544 1,761 Maximum fines issued — — — Number of defendants fined 59 76 92 1 The court proceedings figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 The offence of alcohol consumption in designated public place (section 12 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001) came into force on 1 September 2001. 4 Excludes prosecutions and convictions data for Cardiff magistrates court for April, July, and August 2008. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services—Ministry of Justice.