About
Launched in 2007, Community Alcohol Partnerships was originally developed by the Retail of Alcohol Standards Group in an effort to tackle underage drinking. Now a stand alone Community Interest Company, Community Alcohol Partnerships operate 36 CAP schemes in 17 counties in England, Scotland & Northern Ireland with the first scheme in Wales is planned for later this year.
Community Alcohol Partnerships are developed within individual communities to tackle underage drinking and related antisocial behaviour. CAPs are tailored to suit local needs and, depending on the nature and extent of the problem, different methods of best practice will be adopted in order to best tackle the issue. The range of measures that could be adopted includes:
Enforcement
• Joint Police & Trading Standards activity
• Visible Trading Standards and Police coordinated operations in hot spot areas
Education
• Retailers, Police and the Local Authority communicate agreed messages
• Handouts developed for school and in store use
• Local schools, sixth form colleges and youth clubs engaged
• Engagement with parents as well as young people
• Health Authority involvement
Partnership Working
• Early intelligence sharing
• Training for independent retailers
• Buddying systems
• Co-ordinated signage and leaflets
• Regular meetings
Community Alcohol Partnerships is funded with contributions from the some of the UKs largest drinks producers as well as large and small retailers. You can read more about the supporting partners here.
Public Health Responsibility Deal
Community Alcohol Partnerships will also now form a new pledge as part of the Department of Health’s Public Health Responsibility Deal. The pledge signed by the supporting partners, includes the commitment to fund CAPs until 2014 in order to help roll out further schemes across the UK. This will be taken forward as part of the Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network.
Case studies
- Click here to view case studies of how CAP schemes work in practice
CAP Schemes
Partners
‘This is the new way of doing business, it’s the way forward and it’s not going to change. This is about the long term health of our children.’
Mark Hopkins, Assistant Chief Constable, Cambridgeshire Constabulary