Pubs, bars, clubs, off-licences, convenience stores and hotels all carry the same exposure: one under-age sale, one blind eye to drugs on the premises, or one Designated Premises Supervisor nobody can reach, and the licence is on the table. The law gives licence holders a defence built on evidence, not intention, and evidence means a written policy, dated training and signed records, not a manager's word that staff know the rules.
Stated only as the underlying legislation and PHW's own pack documents state it. No figure or claim below is invented.
Section 146 makes it an offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18. The fine is at level 5 on the standard scale, which for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 is unlimited. Section 147 covers knowingly allowing such a sale. Section 147A, persistent selling, applies where alcohol is unlawfully sold to an under-18 on the same premises on three or more occasions in three consecutive months: a fine of up to £20,000, a closure notice from police or trading standards, and the court may suspend the alcohol part of the premises licence for up to three months.
Section 146 provides a due diligence defence where the offence arises from the act or default of another person: the accused must show they exercised all due diligence to avoid committing it. That defence is only ever as good as the evidence behind it. A policy nobody was trained on, a refusals register nobody completed, and staff who never signed anything will not sustain it.
Section 8 makes it an offence for an occupier, or a person concerned in the management of premises, to knowingly permit the production, supply or use of controlled drugs on those premises. Knowingly permit includes turning a blind eye. Separately, the Licensing Act 2003 sets four licensing objectives, and the first is the prevention of crime and disorder. Drug activity on premises goes directly to that objective, and it is the most common reason a premises licence is called in for review by the police. A review can add conditions, cut hours, remove the DPS or revoke the licence entirely.
Section 19 imposes a mandatory condition on every premises licence that authorises the sale of alcohol: the licence must specify an individual as DPS, and that person must hold a valid personal licence. Where there is no validly specified DPS, or the specified DPS's personal licence has lapsed, the premises is not authorised to sell alcohol; selling anyway is an offence under section 136 (unauthorised licensable activities), an unlimited fine and up to six months' imprisonment on summary conviction, for conduct occurring on or after 12 March 2015.
The personal licence itself is a regulated qualification, the Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders (APLH), awarded by an Ofqual-recognised body such as BIIAB, Highfield Qualifications, Qualsafe or QNUK. PHW is not one of those bodies and does not award it. PHW's DPS pack is operational support material for a DPS who already holds a genuine personal licence: role and responsibilities policy, staff training, a knowledge test, a delegation and absence register, and a licence review response and escalation policy. It is never marketed as the DPS qualification or as a personal licence course.
Documents and prices as sold on the PHW shop today. Unlimited staff, no renewal fee, on-site or remote.
A due diligence defence needs a record that outlasts the shift the training happened on.
Every candidate who completes the knowledge test and is signed off receives a certificate carrying a QR code. Scanning it, or looking the reference up directly, opens a live record at verify.phwltd.com showing who was trained, on what, and when: the same record a licensing officer, trading standards or your own management can check without asking you to find a filing cabinet.
No. Challenge 25 is industry best practice and the accepted standard, not a statutory duty. We tell staff it is our policy and that departing from it is a disciplinary matter, not that it is the law.
No. Only a genuine Ofqual-regulated Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders from a recognised awarding body satisfies section 19 of the Licensing Act 2003. The DPS support pack sits alongside a personal licence your DPS already holds; it is never sold as the qualification itself.
Whether the server asked for ID and asked at the right point, whether there is a written age verification policy the server knew, whether that server was trained and the dated record exists, whether the refusals register is up to date, and whether the DPS has reviewed any of it this year. Each of those is a document, not an opinion.
No, this pack is scoped to underage sales prevention, drugs awareness and DPS support. General H&S compliance packs are a separate PHW product line.
Against the pack's own knowledge test, marked from a separate answer key, with the result and sign-off recorded and issued as a QR-verifiable certificate.
Tell us about your venue and we will come back to you with what fits.