Andrew McPherson, North Lanarkshire Council
Many thanks for inviting me down from North Lanarkshire. I'm going to give a brief overview of how we implemented the legislation in Scotland, particularly within North Lanarkshire, and how we built compliance with the business community.
In North Lanarkshire, we very quickly realised that the best way to ensure compliance was to work with people as opposed to working against them.
The legislation that was introduced was the Smoking Health and Social Care Scotland Act 2005, which then allowed for the introduction of the Prohibition of Smoking in Certain Premises, Scotland Regulations 2006, which effectively is the prohibition of smoking in premises.
The guidance, (which I presume is similar to what's happening in England for those persons in control of premises) was drawn up by our own environmental health profession in Scotland, and that was there to promote a consistency of enforcement approach throughout Scotland as we realised that one of the main problems that businesses have is an inconsistent approach by environmental health officers in a variety of local authorities.
So what was the aim of the legislation? We very quickly realised that it wasn't to work in isolation. It was part of an overall strategy to improve the public health in Scotland by tackling and addressing the problems associated with smoking, so as a result we realised that we knew that it had to be successfully implemented. We worked closely with the Lanarkshire Health Board so we could integrate our activities with smoking cessation. We also wanted to tackle the problems with smoking litter so we worked with our cleansing department and the trading standards officers to address the problem of under age sales.
The legislation on premises in Scotland is very similar to that in England. It's basically any premises, which are wholly or substantially enclosed. The exact same definition is being used down south as it was up in Scotland, and as a result, virtually all premises became included such as the retail shops, the bars, the restaurants. There were a couple of strange ones that did come into the equation that initially you wouldn't actually think they would come into the terms of legislation.
That was a major issue with businesses, particularly the larger businesses that the main body of their premises had been non smoking for a good number of years and they'd invested fairly substantially in providing comfortable smoking shelters for the staff. The concern from business was that, come 27th March, the day after the ban came into place, we could come along and then we would either prohibit the use of the shelters or ask them to be demolished or amended in some way. That's not what our approach was about. Our concern was with the main premises. If they were smokefree, that was fine. If they had a smoking shelter, certainly we'd look at it. If it didn't comply then we would let them know how to comply and we would come back in six months to a year. Smoking shelters were way down the list of priorities.
Bus stops as well are not 50% open to the air, so therefore they come within the terms of the legislation. Technically they're supposed to have the signage and therefore comply.
There is also the issue of Council buildings which came into the legislation, but really it was essential for us that the council buildings were 100% smokefree, because, as compliance officers we were working from these building to ensure compliance with the legislation. We had to act as an exemplar to every business in our community.
I've spoken at a number of conferences and have always stood up smugly and said that we are 100% smokefree. That was until four weeks ago. The leader of our council was being interviewed by the Hollywood Magazine, which is the magazine for our Scottish parliament, and they were going through the usual sort of mundane things about forthcoming elections and health concerns. Half way through the interview the leader of the council asked the journalist if it was okay to smoke. So you can imagine the journalist thinking that this was a great scoop. The Leader quite happily went away and smoked. Throughout the interview he smoked a total of three cigarettes, so the journalist went back and wrote her article and obviously there was absolutely nothing in it about what they actually talked about. Rather, it was all about the fact that the leader of the council in North Lanarkshire which has one of the worst health records in Western Europe was quite happily smoking in his own council offices. I have to say that we did take action against him. We took the same level of action against the leader of the council as we would against an employee of Sainsbury's or Asda who was caught smoking. The leader of the council was subjected to internal disciplinary action and we issued a warning notice to our chief executive as our focus is on the person that allows people to smoke as opposed to the actual people smoking, so there are no double standards of enforcement.
The actual offences that were legislated for in Scotland are virtually identical to what's proposed in England, but the fairly significant difference is that there is the offence to smoke in a no-smoking premises. It carries the same fine of £50 for fixed penalty. We always saw it as an offence to allow people to smoke, but we have the facility in Scotland for a fixed penalty notice of £200. Obviously there's been a different approach in England but we'll have to wait and see what route has been the best.
In addition, in Scotland we had various signage requirements. This has really been viewed as secondary importance by enforcement staff. It's more of a technical issue, rather than anything else. The level of compliance for correct signage in premises in Scotland is significantly below that for smoking and we are quite happy with that. Our approach has been that if we were to go into a pub on 3rd April last year, and four weeks previous to that, that pub had a significant number of smokers in it but it was completely smokefree on 3rd April, then that to us was a success. That's what the whole aim of this legislation was about. If there are instances of non-compliance with the signage then we would just give them the correct signs at the time, and our experience has been that it has been well received by the business community.
I will now turn to the timetable for legislation. The legislation was issued in October 2005. The implementation date was 26th March, so that give us about six months to liaise with businesses and build up that level of compliance, which I think was, was more than enough. The guidance for business was issued in November 2005, similar to the timescales involved in England. If there was any criticism, it was the funding for local authorities which wasn't finalised until February and that gave us a month to advertise for staff and put in placement, but overall a minor inconvenience at the end of the day.
So what did we do ahead of the date of implementation? Overall, preparation is the key to success and this is why I believe that we've had such a high level of compliance. There was nationally a major advertising campaign by the Scottish Executive. That was over a four-month period prior to the ban coming into place, and as a result we in North Lanarkshire took the decision that we didn't really want to replicate or duplicate anything that was going on. We wanted to direct our marketing and advertising resources at a more localised level to maybe address the specific concerns that our business community had. The first action that we identified was to organised 24 awareness sessions throughout North Lanarkshire. The area has got a population of 320,000. It's got eight major centres of population, and we had seminars at each of these areas, morning, noon and night. Every business within North Lanarkshire was invited - a total of 5,500 premises. We didn't have an idea of how many were going to turn up but over 400 businesses were represented.
We took the decision that we would commission a DVD, and we did this for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it would assist in the delivery of the events. Also, for consistency as well, this was one of the important things that we had to get across that like England, there was a very small minority but a very vocal minority in Scotland that were jumping in every inconsistency that was coming across, either from a national level or even a local level, and they were exaggerating it and putting a dampener on the whole legislation. By providing a DVD, it was the same message at every single event. In addition, every business that came along got a copy of the DVD. They were able to take that back and then use it as a training resource to give to their own staff so then they could be aware of what was required of them, personally, as a result of the ban. Today, this DVD is now being used throughout Scotland and it's also getting used as a training resource for enforcement staff as well.
All persons who attended were given copies of the signage to put up on their premises. They were issued with a copy of the guidance as well and in keeping with the overall aim of the legislation we invited along our colleagues in the health board who were able to provide cessation advice to all the businesses that came along. The purpose of these events was to provide a one-stop shop for businesses, where all their concerns and information could be addressed
We took the decision to visit all ‘high-risk premises' prior to the legislation coming into force. High risk means that those premises which had the high prevalence of smoking in, the pubs, the clubs or the bingo halls, We were able to go to each business and give them copies of the guidance; copies of the signage; and to make sure they're well aware of what was required of them come 26th March.
Smoking litter is not rocket science. If you introduce a ban on smoking in enclosed spaces, everybody's going to go outside for a cigarette. What do they do with their cigarette? They put it on the street. Every country that's introduced a ban has noticed an increase in cigarette litter so within North Lanarkshire we took the decision to try and sort of counteract this issue. We had a ‘no ifs, no butts campaign'. We launched the campaign in November 2005. Essentially it was trying to hold out an olive branch to the smokers, because we are becoming a persecuted group of people, and we were trying to assist them. The campaign was all about providing these small personal portable ashtrays for smokers, where, if they were going outside, then it gave them the facility to dispose of their cigarettes properly. We also issued a supply of these to every licensed premises in North Lanarkshire and they were then able to offer their customers the opportunity to discard litter properly and not to give rise to a litter problem.
Our enforcement approach was non confrontational from the very start. Our focus was going to be on the owners and managers of premises, rather than the actual individual smoker. If we visited premises and found somebody smoking, our issue wouldn't be with the individual smoker. Rather it would be with the actual person who's allowed them to smoke. We also took the decision that there wouldn't be any enforcement action at the time of the offence in the majority of cases. It is not really fair to try and communicate with a manager of a pub at 10 o'clock at night. There is also the potential for major confrontation, not just with the actual owner, but with the list of regulars that will spring to their defence, so we're better off waiting and dealing with it in a more sort of amenable environment. Our approach was to come back the next day at a more convenient time, identify ourselves and let them know that we'd been there and witnessed a breach of the actual legislation.
Enforcement is in the majority of cases always overt. At the very start we started doing covert operations where two environmental health officers would go in plain clothes, buy two orange juices and sit in the corner. However, I don't know what it is about environmental health offices, but as soon as you walk into a place everybody knows who you are!
Instead, we wanted to work with businesses because that's the best way of ensuring a high level of compliance, so we now go in and announce ourselves, and we find that there is no real difference. If somebody's smoking, you're going to witness it. If somebody has been smoking, you're going to smell it, because pubs have a different atmosphere now.
So what are the results so far?
Within North Lanarkshire we've undertaken about 4,000 inspections. Our compliance for smoking, or non-smoking, whatever way you want to look at it has been 99.8%. Compliance for notices has around about 73%. We have issued 10 fixed penalty notices. These were all issued within one town centre within North Lanarkshire and it was at the request of the town centre management.
Nationally in Scotland, there have been about 53,000 inspections and compliance for smoking is round about 98%. Compliance for notices is 78% and the number of notices issued is 221. 210 of those are on individuals and there's only been 11 fixed penalty notices issued to premises throughout Scotland,
In terms of monitoring we plan to continue along the same approach as we currently adopt as we find that it is working. On cigarette litter - the levels of cigarette litter on the streets of North Lanarkshire were down between November and March.
Going forward we will still maintain the high level of compliance throughout. We need to maintain the momentum and support of the public, but really that is self-generating. All the good news stories are coming out. It's very positive. There's no reason to expect that it will deteriorate and we need to ensure that cigarette litter problems are controlled.
In conclusion I come from Glasgow where my father worked in the Clyde shipyard. In my father's day, working with asbestos was viewed normal. Today, working with asbestos is completely intolerable. I've got three young children and I think that when they go to pubs and clubs in the future they will look back and wonder why anyone would have ever considering socialising in a smoky atmosphere.
