An incident register allows licensees to record incidents involving violence and anti-social behaviour, as well as people being asked to leave or refused entry to licensed premises.

Why maintain incident records/register

You may have a condition placed on your premises licence/club premises certificate requiring you to maintain incidents records. 

If you fail to have incident records/register as a result of a condition the licence holder commits an offence under Section 136 Licensing Act 2003.  It is your responsibility to ensure that procedures are put in place to ensure that the incident register is being properly maintained. This may require you to delegate responsibility to duty managers or other key staff at your premises.  If you do this, you should emphasise your legal obligations and the importance of maintaining the register in accordance with the requirements of the law.

It is also useful to educate all your staff as part of an induction or ongoing staff training program of the importance and value of maintaining an incident register so that they understand its importance in supporting a safe and responsible premises.

Regularly reviewing the recording of incidents with staff, as soon as possible after each incident, will help to ensure that incidents are recorded in a consistent and accurate manner.

Records to contain relevant information

We would recommend that they contain the following information:-

  • the name of the premises
  • details of the incident
  • description/names of offenders and witnesses involved in the incident
  • the date and time when the incident took place
  • the location at the premises where the incident took place
  • the full name of any approved manager who was on duty when the incident took place
  • the full name of each employee of the licensee involved in the incident
  • details of any action taken by the licensee, an approved manager or an employee in response to
    the incident, including any action taken to notify the licensing authority or a member of the Police or any other person engaged in providing emergency services.

Nature of incidents

This information must be recorded in respect of incidents of the following nature:-

  • a person is refused entry because they are drunk
  • a person is refused entry for behaving in an offensive manner including violent, quarrelsome,
    disorderly or indecent behaviour
  • a person who has been refused entry to the premises continually attempts to gain entry or behaves
    in an offensive manner including violent, quarrelsome, disorderly or indecent behaviour
  • a person is required to leave or is removed from the premises
  • an under age person or suspected under age person fails to produce evidence of age when required to do so
  • a document produced by an underage person or suspected underage person as evidence of age is suspected to be forged, false or counterfeit
  • a local resident or other person complains to the licensee, an approved manager or an employee
    about noise or any other matter related to the business conducted under the licence.

Updating records

Incidents should be recorded in the register as soon as practicable after the incident occurs. What is practicable will depend on the individual circumstances of the premises, such as opening hours and the nature of the incident. A 24 hour timeframe may be reasonable for some premises whereas the next working day will be better suited to premises that do not trade on a daily basis.

The incident register is to be retained permanently. Whilst there is no requirement to maintain the register as a bound book with numbered pages, all incident report forms should be stored together on the licensed premises and be readily accessible for inspection by an authorised officer or police.  It maybe easier for smaller premises to buy a diary (page per day) and require staff to enter incidents into the diary.