Quest for the best goes on

The Best Bar None pub and club accreditation scheme is being rolled out nationally and plans are afoot to make it even bigger. John Harrington talks to the founders about the future

One suspects Manchester police sergeant Jan Brown is only half-joking when she talks of creating a Best Bar None (BBN) award for pubs in TV soaps; could EastEnders' favourite landlady Peggy Mitchell soon be seen clutching a coveted BBN plaque? It may seem an ambitious publicity stunt, but Brown rules nothing out as she plans to take the pub and club accreditation scheme to "the next level". (Interestingly, Coronation Street actress Beverley Callard, aka Liz McDonald, was on hand to launch Manchester's BBN last week, but perhaps that's just coincidence).

BBN has grown at lightening pace since its launch in Manchester six years ago. The scheme, which tests venues across a range of criteria to prove they are responsible, currently operates at more than 60 towns and cities across Britain. Thirty two of these were set up on the specific advice of the Home Office, which has taken up BBN as part of its Tackling Violent Crime Programme.

Talking to Brown and her colleague Steven Greenacre, from Greater Manchester Police's City Safe Unit - which helped found BBN - there is little doubting their ambition.

"Our mission is for every licensed premises in the UK to have access to a Best Bar None scheme," says Greenacre.

The next stage, he explains, is to create a series of 10 regional Best Bar None Awards across the country. The winners of these will be put forward for the first national awards, planned for April 2007.

Choose a pub online

Alongside this, Brown promises that the launch of the new Best Bar None website is imminent. This will list accredited venues in participating areas, and include useful information to help customers have a safe night out, such as taxi numbers and sensible drinking advice.

"The consumer will get all the information they will need to make their night more enjoyable and more pleasant," says Brown. "You've heard of MySpace - this will be like PubSpace."

Greenacre adds: "We realise that if Best Bar None is to reach the next level and be really successful, and to get retailers on board it has to be consumer-led. We are trying to achieve that now and through the website we will be able to offer accredited premises the chance to showcase themselves on a national and international basis."

Brown, who received an OBE for her work with BBN, adds: "We need people who don't drink in certain areas to have the confidence to come back."

With BBN going national, Greenacre says there's opportunity to build up sponsorship.

He stresses the need to get more "business-like" to generate enough money to expand. "We need to income-generate with Best Bar None. We didn't want to be a burden on the tax payer and we don't want to go cap in hand to the alcohol producers. We ask retailers to contribute to Best Bar None but we do that by providing them a service.

"This is a not-for-profit exercise. It's for the public good, but it needs to be paid for so we want it to be as commercially competitive as possible. We want to offer our sponsors more value for money. By having a national Best Bar None system, we hope to offer national deals."

More local sponsors

Some of the world's biggest drinks companies have stumped up cash, including Diageo, Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch and Carlsberg. "Responsible drinks producers are showing they want their product to be drunk in a responsible way under the best possible conditions and enjoyed sensibly rather than being used as fuel for disorder," says Brown.

But smaller regional firms, from taxi companies to local radio stations and newspapers, have also got on board. Greenacre says sponsorship can vary from £2,000 for local schemes to five-figure sums for the national awards. So there's plenty of scope for companies of all sizes to get involved.

"At a local level we are saying [to BBN organisers], 'you should broaden out to people who support Best Bar None beyond the drinks industry'. In Western Super Mare the main sponsor of their awards is a local taxi firm. You could have 27 different local sponsors all giving, say £1,000 each, rather than one big company footing the bill."

Brown adds: "It would be nice to get wine companies involved and soft drinks manufacturers. Great sponsors would be mobile phone companies - mobile phones are used extensively in our late-night economy."

The two talk at length about the benefits of the scheme for licensees - and stress that it's not just about reducing disorder. Brown points to last year's winner, Fifth Avenue in Manchester, where turnover increased after it was named Best Bar None.

Social responsibility

"Safety is a huge thing now. People want to be safe and they want good-quality service. If you are going to attract more people into the night-time economy you have to ask yourself, 'if I was them what would I want?' It's not standing for 15 minutes in a queue, or your table not being cleared for 15 minutes, or feeling intimidated by other people."

Greenacre stresses the importance of BBN for licensees at a time when the trade is under intense scrutiny to up its game in terms of social responsibility.

"In this environment of AMECs [alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns], when we have test purchase operations on a scale we've never had before, it's madness not to invest in training for staff and licensees on how to manage a premises properly. Ultimately their business might be closed down.

"We've seen time and time again the premises that do subscribe to the principles of Best Bar None have the lower rates of crime and disorder."

With the launch of the Government's high-profile Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy in March 2004, the trade was told it had three years to get its house in order on binge drinking or face Draconian laws. The prospects are scary. Among the ideas suggested are tough paid-for-policing measures, new powers to fix drinks prices, and automatic refusal of new licence applications unless a venue could prove it would not cause antisocial behaviour.

With the three-year deadline looming, Brown suggests BBN goes some way to

showing progress is being made: "The industry has signed up to a lot of voluntary codes but this will give it the chance to show what it is doing."

In addition, venues that achieve BBN accreditation could save money if the Government's controversial alcohol disorder zones (ADZs) get the go-ahead. Under an ADZ, licensees face an extra tax to clear up problems of alcohol-related disorder, but the Home Office is considering a discount for venues that achieve BBN accreditation. "It's gone in the melting pot," says Greenacre. "Let's see what comes out of it."

A common language

Greenacre is upbeat about the steps made by the trade to work together to resolve disorder issues since BBN's launch. Crucially, he says it has boosted police understanding of the trade and helped foster a better relationship with licensees.

"In the past the typical police response was to get the licensee in and shout at them. Quite often you'd get licensees who would say, 'ok, we'll do something to change the way we do our business, what do you want us to do?' The police couldn't really give them an answer, and the drinks industry at that time - we're talking 2001 - had not fully addressed the issue of social responsibility.

"There was no common language. What I think we've created with Best Bar None is a common language so they can talk to each other.

"The police, and the drink industry as well, has a high turnover of staff, so in one area that's been absolutely superb one minute, with a good working relationship between police officers and licensees, a new commander can come in and have no interest in licensing issues and perhaps no knowledge of it.

"You can use Best Bar None to frame any discussions about raising standards or decreasing crime rates."

So, six years on from BBN's launch, how do the scheme's pioneers view th