Community Alcohol Partnerships
CAP
Community Alcohol Partnerships (CAP) exists to reduce alcohol harm in local communities from drinking by young people under 18, with a particular emphasis on preventing underage drinking.
CAP was piloted by RASG in 2007. The model and evaluation framework has since been extensively tested with the result that CAP is now considered one of the most effective ways of tackling localised underage drinking with over 300 partnerships across the UK.
Responsible retail strategies are an integral part of the CAP approach. CAPs work closely with alcohol retailers, providing support, training and publicity materials and helping them build positive relationships with local police, trading standards and licensing officers so that together they are doing everything possible to prevent underage and proxy sales.
New Annual Report
2024 was a year of further progress in CAP’s core provision of local partnerships, focused on reducing adolescent alcohol consumption and harm, accompanied by investment to lay the foundations for greater national impact.
CAP's impact in numbers
There is an emerging body of evidence that CAPs help to reduce alcohol-related crime and disorder and the acquisition of alcohol by under-18s. Very encouragingly we are also now seeing significant and sustained reductions in regular drinking among 13-16 year olds in CAP areas where regular drinking is defined as drinking at least once a week: the definition used by the Health and Social Care Information Centre which produces the ‘Smoking, drinking and drug use among Young People in England’ series.
Reduction in regular drinking among 13-16 year olds
Source: CAP Annual Report 2024/2025, 02 April 2025
Pass rates in Challenge 25 following CAP training
Reduction in alcohol related anti-social behaviour
reduction in residents reporting children and young people drinking in public places to be a “very big” or “fairly big” problem
