An independent review into Drinkaware has called for “substantial changes” to how the industry-funded alcohol awareness charity operates, and says it has not yet made a compelling case for continued funding from the trade.
The report says that while some aspects of its work are “done well, others are poorly done or are lacking entirely.” “No stakeholder group is entirely happy with the current status quo,” it adds.
The review has been carried out by consultants 23red on behalf of Drinkaware’s Independent Review Panel (IRP) and looked at Drinkaware’s activities, stakeholder relations, governance and management, and funding between 2009 and 2012. There were 118 survey responses and 36 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders.
The report into Drinkaware - which is funded by major drinks firms, supermarkets and pub companies including JD Wetherspoon, Punch, Mitchells & Butlers and Enterprise Inns - says the charity has improved in some areas since the last review. For example, achieving “near-ubiquity” for the Drinkaware.co.uk website, improving arrangements for stakeholder engagements and becoming more professional in its approach to campaigns.
But all groups of stakeholders are “dissatisfied with the status quo to some degree”. Dissatisfaction focuses on three key issues:
1) The lack of an evidence base, both to inform what Drinkaware does and to evaluate how it does it
2) A perception of industry influence resulting in a suspicion that Drinkaware is not truly independent of the alcohol industry
3) Weak stakeholder engagement, resulting in Drinkaware’s isolation within the alcohol harm reduction community.
The report says there’s a “lack of clarity” concerning Drinkaware’s mission and purpose, and recommended a review of these by the Drinkaware Trust.
“Drinkaware has no over arching marketing strategy and has provided no analysis for why it prioritises the audiences and activities it does,” the report says. “It does not have a peer review process for strategy and evaluation documents nor does it routinely publish these for public scrutiny.”
It says that since 2009, “good work” has been done to build awareness of the Drinkaware logo and brand, gaining better understanding of marketing and behaviour change, piloting interesting initiatives and achieving some success with its parents and adults programmes.
“However, the Trust has failed to develop sufficient evidence of actual behaviour change, relying principally on self-reported measures.
“Reviewing these self-reported measures, we see that the most encouraging shift has been in the age of first supervised and unsupervised drink, where a steady positive trend has been observed.”
However, for other target audiences the picture is “patchy”. “For 18–24s, the KPI on not having to get drunk to have a good night out appears to have eroded slightly since 2009, while the proportion claiming to drink to get drunk every or most times they drink has improved slightly.
“Adoption of tips has changed little with the exception of ‘pace self’ (although this change seems to be largely as a result of a wording change in the questionnaire). Among adults [aged] 25–44, awareness of units has increased but understanding of the guidelines has eroded among both men and women.”
While relations between Drinkaware and the industry are “strong”, and their perceptions of the charity “improved significantly” since the last review, public health stakeholders are “considerably more critical”, particularly in relation to its “perceived lack of independence and evidence base”.
“For some, any explicit involvement of the alcohol industry in the governance and operations of Drinkaware means that it cannot be truly independent and must raise questions about its efficacy and even the case for its existence.”
In terms of governance and management, the role and performance of trustees and matters of board practice are dealt “effectively” at Drinkaware. But there are “weak points”, such as having no formal induction or appraisal process.
The review said there’s a “fundamental issue” with the board structure, which has two equal blocks of industry and health stakeholders and just two independent trustees.
“Perhaps more importantly, the structure fuels the perception amongst the public health community that Drinkaware is not independent of industry. We believe a different structure would be beneficial.”
On funding, the review says Drinkaware has not yet demonstrated a compelling case for the industry to continue to fund its activities and has provided no evidence of return on investment.
The report urged Drinkaware to develop a “robust evidence base” for its activities, restructure its board to show it’s more independent, promote collaboration with non-industry stakehodlers, and ensure it’s resourced effectively; for example, by conducting skills and capability audits.
Derek Lewis, chairman of Drinkaware, said: “The Drinkaware team has achieved major progress in a relatively short time in an area of education and behaviour change that is notoriously difficult.
“The report sets out the scale of the challenge for the future. While everyone at Drinkaware is up for the challenge, there should be no illusions about its difficulty, requiring new ground to be broken in social marketing with modest resources and a desire for evidence of long-term results within a short time frame.”
Elaine Hindal, chief executive of Drinkaware, said: “We are pleased that the audit recognises the considerable progress Drinkaware has made since its inception in 2007. As its new chief executive I am looking forward to building on the strong foundation established by the Drinkaware Board of Trustees and by my team and am excited about the future.
“I welcome the recommendations made in the audit and will ensure that they are considered carefully, both in the development of our future organisational strategy and in the delivery of our 2013 Operating Plan. I’m delighted that our self-assessment of our performance means that we had already recognised many of our development areas and actions to address more than two-thirds of them are already underway.”
