Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network

This article is part of the Spinwatch public health oriented Alcohol Portal project.

This article is part of the Health Portal project of Spinwatch.

Alcohol Network

The Alcohol Network is one of the components of the Public Health Responsibility Deal it works with partners from the alcohol industry to develop pledges for action that promote sensible alcohol consumption. The network is co-chaired by Jeremy Beadles, the Chief Executive of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association and Professor Mark Bellis from the Faculty of Public Health, with support from Paul Burstow MP, Minister of State for Care Services at the Department of Health. The network’s newsletter, published in July 2011, claimed that 220 partners had signed up to the network . The organisations involved and their specific commitments to the group's pledges can be found on the DoH's website: Responsibility Deal Partners All members of the alcohol network sign up to a broad and non-specific core commitment: “We will foster a culture of responsible drinking, which will help people to drink within guidelines.” There are then a series of seven collective pledges that members can to sign up to on a voluntary basis. At least half of the 220 partners have signed up to at least one of seven pledges relating to alcohol. Some companies have made individual pledges specific to their organisation.

Collective Alcohol Network Pledges

• By December 2013 over 80% of products will be labelled with clear unit content, NHS guidelines and a warning about drinking when pregnant. For a full list of signatories to this pledge see Signatories to Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network Labelling Pledge
• Provide information for on-trade products on unit content and explore ways of communicating health messages
• Provide information for off-trade products on unit and calorie content and NHS guidelines
• Ensure action taken to reduce and prevent under-age sales of alcohol
• Continue to fund Drinkaware Trust and the “Why let the Good times go bad?” campaign as set out in the Memoranda of Understanding between Industry, Government and Drinkaware Trust.
• Further action on advertising and marketing with the development of a new sponsorship code requiring the promotion of responsible drinking, not putting alcohol adverts on outdoor poster sites within 100m of schools and adhering to the Drinkaware brand guidelines to ensure clear and consistent usage.
• Provide support for schemes appropriate for local areas to address issues around social and health harms, and will act together to improve joined up working between such schemes operating in local areas as: • Best Bar None and Pubwatch, which set standards for on-trade premises • Purple Flag which make awards to safe, consumer friendly areas • Community Alcohol Partnerships, which currently support local partnership working to address issues such as under-age sales and alcohol related crime, are to be extended to work with health and education partners in local Government • Business Improvement Districts, which can improve the local commercial environment.

Individual Pledges agreed between partners and Co-Chairs

• Asda by 30th April 2011 will no longer display alcohol in the foyers of our stores
• Asda will provide an additional £1m to tackle alcohol misuse by young people
• Heineken aim to remove 100 million units of alcohol from the UK market each year through lowering the strength of a major brand by 2013
• Heineken will distribute 11 million branded glasses into the UK on trade showing alcohol unit information by end of 2011
• Diageo Three year project to extend the NOFAS-UK “What Do You Tell A Pregnant Woman About Alcohol” programme across England & Wales to inform over 1 million pregnant women of what they need to know about alcohol in pregnancy
• Diageo, Molson Coors, Heineken & Bacardi Brown Forman together commit to working with the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) and The Home Office to support the continuation and further development of the Best Bar None scheme for at least the next three years. Invest at least £500,000 (commencing May 2011) and add a further 20 schemes in that time.
• Community Alcohol Partnerships (& supporting partners) will expand the reach of Community Alcohol Partnerships (CAPs) in the UK through an investment of at least £800,000 by alcohol retailers and producers over the next three years. This will significantly increase the number of CAP schemes in local communities and extend their remit beyond tackling under-age sales to wider alcohol-related harm.

Working Groups

Three working groups that initially planned to have one representative from the industry and one from an NGO or public health advocacy body. This has been difficult to achieve, after initial meetings six organisations refused to work with the network that was dominated by the alcohol industry and that the aims and interests of industry were put before a meaningful public health strategy. This has left the network short of non-industry partners. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, Alcohol Concern, the British Association for the Study of the Liver, the British Liver Trust, and the Institute of Alcohol Studies all withdrew from membership of the network. The BMA’s director of professional activities, Vivienne Nathanson stated

“The BMA has thought long and hard about walking away from the table, but ultimately we do not feel we have any option. The government has ‘talked the talk’ in respect of wanting to tackle alcohol misuse, but when it comes to taking tough action that will achieve results it falls short. Instead it has chosen to rely on the alcohol industry to develop policies. Given the inherent conflict of interest, these will do nothing to reduce the harm caused by alcohol misuse.”

Don Shaker of Alcohol Concern was equally scathing “By allowing the drinks industry to propose such half hearted pledges on alcohol with no teeth, this government has clearly shown that when it comes to public health its first priority is to side with big business and protect private profit..” The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, defended the project “We made clear from the start that the responsibility deal is just one strand of the government’s wide public health policy. It explicitly excludes cost and price competition to avoid breaches in competition law.” This confrontation has left the network short on non-alcohol industry representatives and therefore the non-industry working group chairs are still to be confirmed. The three working groups are:

• Retail principles this group will explore the potential of actions in the retail environment to support the Deal’s objectives. Chaired by Guy Mason, Morrisons and (tbc)
• Lower alcohol and smaller measures, exploring how people can be helped to reduce their alcohol consumption through the development and marketing of lower alcohol products and smaller serving sizes. Chaired by Scott Wilson, Molson Coors and Alan Hopley, Addaction (tbc)
• Education and young people, looking at delaying the onset of drinking in under 18s by targeted education aimed at young people and parents of under 16 year olds. Chaired by Bruce Ray, Bacardi Brown Forman and (tbc)

Criticisms

Those invited to participate in the network are listed below, however after initial meetings (by March 2011) leading alcohol charities and health advocacy groups refused to join the group arguing that the government was not taking a robust enough approach with the alcohol industry in relation to public health. The six include Alcohol Concern, the British Association for the Study of the Liver, the British Liver Trust, the British Medical Association, the Institute of Alcohol Studies and the Royal College of Physicians. In a joint statement the groups that have walked away from this partnership with industry gave the following reasons:

• The overall Responsibility Deal Alcohol (RDA) policy objective to ‘foster a culture of responsible drinking’ does not adequately address the need to reduce alcohol-related mortality and morbidity.
• The RDA drinks industry pledges are not specific or measurable and do not state what would be evidence of success.
• The RDA process has prioritised industry views and not considered alternative pledges put forward by the health community. These have included proposed pledges: to not advertise alcohol based on price; to not advertise in cinemas for under-18 films: and to include health warnings on all drinks products.
• The scope of the RDA is currently too limited. It does not tackle issues such as, availability or promotion of alcohol, and focuses on voluntary interventions with no evidence of effectiveness.
• We have not yet seen evidence that Government is working towards a comprehensive, cross-departmental strategy to reduce alcohol harm, based on evidence of what works, with rigorous evaluation metrics.
• There has been no commitment made on what alternative actions Government will take if the RDA pledges do not significantly reduce levels of alcohol-related harm.

Public health advocacy groups argue that the pledges developed by the network are skewed in favour of the alcohol industry, providing an inadequate response to the severity of alcohol related harm in the UK. The pledges themselves continue to be vague and difficult to measure and do not contain evidence based measure to elevate rates of harm caused by alcohol consumption. The alcohol industry has refused to consider banning alcohol advertising that is based on price, including health warnings on the labels of all alcoholic drinks and to end advertising in cinemas when films for under-age viewers are shown. Further examination of the first three alcohol pledges finds that many of the agreements made by the alcohol industry are assurances that have already been given to government but never fulfilled.

Examining the pledges offered by the network makes it difficult not to agree with these criticisms. It is clear that this strategy is a continuation of what has gone before. Encouraging the alcohol industry to become a responsible sector voluntarily has so far proven fruitless. The industry is in the business of selling alcohol - how can it also lead the charge on promoting public health and reducing alcohol related harm? This is evident in the pledges that the industry is willing to sign up to, they are the least likely to make an impact on alcohol-related harm and, subsequently, the least impact on profits.

Labelling

Commitments to achieve labelling standards will be overseen by the Portman Group. The labelling system requires alcohol companies to provide clear unit information, recommended daily limits and a warning to pregnant drinkers. In addition a voluntary element asks producers to consider including a reference to Drinkaware Trust and a slogan such as ‘please drink responsibly’. This is not a new role for the Portman Group the industry already has a voluntary labelling code for strengthening the health messages on alcohol labels, however the industry has failed to implement its own voluntary code. In 1998 and again in 2007 the government and alcohol industry announced that by the end of 2008 alcohol bottles would carry health warnings on the labels, Ministers warned the government that if they did not adhere to the voluntary code then legislation would enforce formal regulation. Compliance rates have been low. A report commissioned by the Department of Health in 2009 found that only 15% of the industry's labelling conformed to the self regulatory code. This research was undertaken by Campden Brewing Research International a research company who also lobby politicians on the health benefits of beer. Perhaps unsurprisingly Alcohol Concern's research into labelling standards found that only 4% of alcohol labels adhered to the voluntary code.

Alcohol Unit Information

Again the Portman Group will oversee efforts by the alcohol industry to provide clear information on how many alcohol units are contained within products. This commitment was not undertaken in the 1998 or 2007 deals between government and alcohol producers on off sale products. Efforts to include such information on on sale alcohol has been agreed to by some individual producers how this happens is in the hands of the industry, again no mandatory regulation is proposed despite previous failure to comply.

Awareness of Alcohol Units, Calories & other information in the Off-trade

This proposal aims to provide consumers with more information on the health consequences of alcohol intake. A recent survey found that 82% of people had no idea how many calories their alcohol consumption accounted for. Alcohol concern research also suggests that in adults who drink alcohol around 10% of their calorific intake comes from their alcohol intake. Tackling rising levels of obesity and alcohol related harm are important parts of the responsibility deal and this pledge addresses both.

Self Regulation Previous commitments made by the alcohol industry have amounted to little. Reviews published monitoring the alcohol industry's adherence to voluntary regulation routinely finds the industry falling short on its commitments. A review from KPMG found the industry routinely failing to put commitments into practice and of ignoring industry self regulatory codes on how alcohol is promoted. The 1998 agreement to include unit information found 43% had none of the agreed information and only 3% had fully applied the agreed commitments.

Lansley Thanks Industry

Andrew Lansley the UK's Health Minister praised the alcohol industry for their efforts to improve public health at the 2011 Wine & Spirit Trade Association annual conference on 14th September 2011. This is surprising given the lack of action that is evident in moves to improve alcohol related health and rates of harm. Chris Mercer reporting for the trade publication Just Drinks noted the health secretary said "Thank You" to the alcohol industry "at least 5 times in the first ten minutes of his speech" Mercer continued " heaped praise on the industry's commitment to the government's 'responsibility deal' to reduce alcohol harm. He also reinforced the official line that this Government prefers "voluntary action" over regulation. Hard-talking, anti-alcohol health lobbyists have largely been driven underground by a Government that prioritises business and dislikes intervention" These "anti-alcohol health lobbyists" are in fact public health advocates who propose evidence based alcohol control polices, and are therefore the enemy of the alcohol industry.

Monitoring and Evaluation Group

• Mark Bellis Chair
• Sarah Woolnough Cancer Research UK
• Nick Sheron Clinical Hepatologist, University of Southampton
• David Poley The Portman Group
• Andy Tighe British Beer & Pub Association
• Secretariat provided by Jean Nicol Department of Health

Invited Attendees to Initial Meetings

Dr Adrian Bonner Institute for Alcohol Studies | Alison Douglas (Observer) The Scottish Government | Alison Rogers British Liver Trust | Andrew Opie British Retail Consortium | Brigid Simmonds British Beer and Pub Association | Bruce Ray Bacardi Brown Forman Brands | Chris Heffer Department of Health | Don Shenker Alcohol Concern | Erik Castenskiold Mitchell and Butler | Guy Mason Morrisons PLC | Sir Ian Gilmore Alcohol Health Alliance | Jonathon Shepherd Cardiff University | Kay Wheelton The Co-operative | Kieran Simpson Heineken UK | Kirsten Wolfe SABMiller | Laura Davies Wine & Spirit Trade Association | Liam Hughes Local Government Association | Mark Bellis North West Public Health Observatory | Dr Martin Lombard National Clinical Director for Liver Disease | Michelle Norman Constellation Wines Australia and Europe | Nick Sheron University of Southampton | Owen Davies (Observer) Welsh Assembly Government | Paul Kelly ASDA | Paul Lincoln National Heart Forum | Richard Cochrane Bibendum Wine Ltd | Rob Phipps (Observer) | Northern Ireland Government | Sarah Woolnough Cancer Research UK | Scott Wilson Molson Coors | Seymour Fortescue Portman Group | Vicki Nobles Diageo GB | Prof. Vivienne Nathanson British Medical Association

Related Responsibility Deal Networks

• Public Health Responsibility Deal
• Public Health Responsibility Deal Plenary Group
• Responsibility Deal Food Network
• Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network
• Responsibility Deal Health at Work
• Responsibility Deal Physical Activity
• Responsibility Deal Behaviour Change