The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) is urging the Safeguarding Minister and local authorities to move beyond outdated, performative approaches to safety and commit to real cultural change in safeguarding within the night-time economy.
Regulatory strategies that rely on enforcement-led, box-ticking measures fail to address the root causes of harassment, spiking, and other serious crimes, leaving venues and patrons vulnerable.
While initiatives like Ask for Angela provide a valuable tool for individuals in distress, they should not be treated as a licensing requirement. Such an approach fails to foster the deep, systemic cultural change needed to make venues genuinely safer. The NTIA firmly believes that safeguarding cannot be reduced to a checklist or a poster in a bathroom; it must be ingrained in the values and operations of night-time venues.
“For too long, safeguarding has been treated as an afterthought – something to be patched up with superficial training or virtue-signalling campaigns. But real safety requires more than that,” said Silvana Kill, Director of Operations / Safeguarding Lead NTIA. “We need a fundamental shift in how we approach safeguarding, embedding it as a core part of our industry’s culture rather than an enforcement-led obligation.”
The push to make schemes like Ask for Angela a licensing requirement is a prime example of the lazy regulatory mindset that fails to acknowledge the complexity of safeguarding. While public awareness campaigns have their place, they are not a substitute for genuine engagement and responsibility within the sector. A regulatory approach that focuses solely on mandates and enforcement fails to support businesses in fostering meaningful change.
The NTIA calls on the government and local authorities to abandon short-sighted, enforcement-led approaches in favour of long-term, cultural transformation within the night-time economy. By prioritising education, accountability, and industry-led initiatives, we can create a night-time sector where safeguarding is embedded—not enforced—and where safety is a shared responsibility, not a licensing condition.