Governance
A standard should hold itself to one.
Who owns the criteria, who decides, who tests, who can complain and how a badge is taken away. All of it published, because that is the difference between a standard and a sticker.
Structure
The Glitter Standard CIC
A community interest company with an asset lock. It owns the criteria, the mark, the venue register and the data. Its objects are to make licensed and hospitality venues safer and more welcoming for everyone the law protects. An independent director joins within twelve months and the board is majority independent within three years.
The Standards Council
Owns the content of the criteria and approves every change. Invited from national LGBTQIA+, neurodiversity, disability and race equality organisations, a students' union, a licensing professional, a hospitality operator and at least two members with lived experience who are there for themselves. Terms of reference, minutes and membership are published.
Glitterbomb Events
Our sister brand and a separate trading company. It has no ownership of the CIC, no seat on the Standards Council by right and no access to assessment data.
UNight U.K. Ltd
Provides operations, public affairs and licensing expertise to the CIC under a written services agreement at a published fee.
The firewall
The events business sells nights to the same venues the accreditation badges. These are the published commitments that keep them apart.
- Never a criterion
Booking a Glitterbomb night never scores and never shortens the route to accreditation.
- Testers never know
Booking data and assessment data are held separately with separate access.
- Same price, same test
A venue that has never booked a night is assessed exactly as one that has.
- One claim only
Glitterbomb may say it only plays venues committed to the training. It may not say playing there makes a venue Glittered.
- Breaches reported
Any complaint goes to the independent director and is reported in the annual report.
Declared interest: Matthew Jones-Roberts consults for Hopsy, the compliance platform the Standard runs on. He takes no part in the CIC's decisions on platform selection or terms and those decisions are minuted by the independent director.
Testing, published
Everyone in the pool
Every accredited venue is in the random testing pool every year and never knows when or whether it will be tested.
Every venue, every year, in a testing area
Where ten or more venues in an area are accredited, each is tested at least once a year on random nights. Elsewhere a random quarter of venues each year, and every venue within its first year.
Every report triggers a test
A public complaint, a third-party hate report or a partner referral puts the venue on the next testing night.
Testers
Recruited from the communities we serve, trained, paid, always in pairs, rotated so nobody tests the same venue twice in a year. Never employees of a venue operator.
Two decide, never one
Assessment decisions are made by a panel of two, with a lived-experience member on every delisting decision.
Results published
Area pass rates every year. Venue-level results only as the fact of accreditation or delisting.
Complaints, appeals and delisting
Complain about a venue
Email complaints@theglitterstandard.co.uk. Every complaint is logged, acknowledged within five working days and can trigger a test. You can stay anonymous.
Appeal a decision
A venue may appeal a failed assessment or a delisting within 28 days. First review by an assessor not involved; second by a panel of the Standards Council. Decisions and reasons in writing.
Delisting
Triggered by a second dignity or intervention fail within twelve months, a false annual declaration, or a substantiated hate incident where the venue's response failed. Off the map within seven days, the fact published, re-application after six months.
Money and data
Pricing principles
Not-for-profit. One published price list. Small venues pay least. Estates pay per venue with the rate falling at scale. Sponsors fund places, never outcomes. Nobody pays to fail. Testing is never waived. Signposting is free. The list itself is on the venues page at launch.
Data
Venues are controllers of their own incident logs and training records. The CIC receives anonymised aggregated returns and belonging responses collected without names. Venue-level data is never published without consent except the fact of accreditation or delisting. Registered with the ICO; a data protection impact assessment precedes the measurement layer.
We say what we test and test what we say
Every figure we use is sourced in our published evidence spine. Statistics we have retired because they could not be sourced are listed in our corrections register, and we never describe another scheme negatively. What the Standard publishes is the comparison.
Talk to us
Twenty minutes, no cost, no commitment. Tell us who you are and where you are and we will tell you what the route looks like.
hello@theglitterstandard.co.uk
Accreditation, partnerships and press: Matthew Jones-Roberts. Events and the Glitterbomb tour: Stephen Sullivan.