Training: Flying colours

Newly equipped to run a pub, Phil Mellows recounts his experience of the NCPLH exam and why it is useful to have staff with the qualification.

It's in my blood, you know. Before the war - the Second World War, that is (there have been so many recently it's caused confusion) - my grandfather ran a pub, a Mann, Crossman and Paulin tenancy called the Nag's Head in Stepney. So it was with some family pride last week that I was awarded the National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH). I am now qualified to run a pub - although whether I would want to take up such a hazardous profession I very much doubt.

I also suspect that my grandfather would have been rather bemused by the whole idea. Qualifications for licensees are a relatively new idea, and compulsory qualifications, of course, only came in this year, as the Licensing Act 2003 is put into effect.

In case you missed it, while existing licence holders can simply transfer their old licence across to the new personal licence, anyone new applying for a licence has to hold a recognised qualification.

It goes beyond that, though. The new regime demands that each premises licence has a designated premises supervisor (DPS), and that the DPS requires a personal licence too.

You can, of course, make yourself the DPS. But you may want to spread the responsibility. And if your DPS leaves suddenly you need someone handy you can switch to. So it makes sense to have at least two or three DPSs about the place - all of them carrying personal licences.

It's what Sarah Bryan calls "a belt and braces approach" which may go beyond the letter of the law but is very much in the spirit of a change that aims to make the people running pubs more responsible.

It all means that tens of thousands of people are going to have to take the NCPLH or an approved equivalent.

Sarah Bryan, of Moon & Stars training company, was teacher for my NCPLH day when I joined eight other nervous students in the function room of a West End pub.

We were nervous because formal education was a distant memory for most of us, and we probably hadn't been too keen on it then. Part of Sarah's job was to make it as easy as possible for us and she started by filling the table with tins of sweets.

Then we started to work through the BII handbook, which we had already digested (yes, of course we had) and which covers everything we would need to know to pass the exam.

The key thing, it quickly emerged, was to master the knowledge required to answer the compulsory questions.

There are 40 multiple choice questions in the NCPLH exam and eight of them you have to get right. You're allowed 10 mistakes among the other 32.

What you need to know for the big eight, dotted about in the handbook, is helpfully printed in bold. Once you realise that it seems an easier task. My thinking, probably not recommended, was that as long as I knew these bits I could busk the rest of it.

My confidence grew throughout the day - until the exam. For all Sarah's fine work in relaxing us and preparing us for the task ahead, when you see the tables in the room being arranged Victorian classroom-style, all facing forward with big gaps in between to stop you copying, the nerves jangle, your head tenses up and your brain suddenly seems surprisingly empty. Just a few grim childhood memories rattling about in there.

Forty questions seem more like 400 in a situation like this. I had to take a grip on myself. All I had to do was get the eight compulsories in the bag and it would be plain sailing.

So I checked and rechecked my answers on those and then moved on to the 32 - and got a bit of shock. About half of them I knew or could work out easily from the multiple choice. The other half seemed to be from another planet. I was left to picking the likeliest answer with no confidence it was the correct one.

Still, I calculated that the laws of probability meant I should get enough right to scrape through.

A few days later I learned I had, indeed, passed. Slightly more comfortably than I imagined - a tribute to guesswork and, of course, sound training.

• The course was arranged through The Official Training Company, a sister company to The Publican which can offer advice on all aspects of training in the hospitality industry. Go to www.officialtc.co.uk​, email vasb@bssvpvnygp.pb.hx​ or phone 0845 1600031.

The NCPLH is one qualification offered by the BII Awarding Body and takes the place of the National Certificate for Licensees. Approved trainers will normally run the course over a day and charge between £150 and £300. For more information go to www.bii.org.or call 01276 684 449​