Governance
A standard should hold itself to one.
Who owns the criteria, who decides, who tests, who can complain, how the founders are paid and how a badge is taken away. All of it published, because that is the difference between a standard and a sticker.
Who owns what.
The Glitter Standard CIC
A community interest company limited by guarantee with an asset lock, incorporation in progress. It owns the name, the mark, the Ten, the Venue Pack, the register and the map. It cannot pay dividends, it cannot be sold, and if it ever closes its assets go to another asset-locked body. Its board is the independent chair and one founder. Its two founders are its members, with one vote each and the same consent rights over the things that matter: the mark, the Ten, the articles, the chair, any contract with a company connected to a founder, and winding up.
The Standards Council
Owns the content of the Ten and approves every change. It is being formed now, with seats for a national LGBTQIA+ organisation, a neurodiversity organisation, a disability organisation, a race equality organisation, a students' union, a licensing professional, a hospitality operator and three people with lived experience who sit for themselves, at least one of them a disabled LGBTQIA+ person. Members are named here as they accept, with terms of reference and minutes published from the first meeting. Until it meets, the founders hold the criteria unchanged.
The independent chair
A director who is neither founder and has no interest in any company connected with a founder. Chairs the board, sets and publishes founder pay under the remuneration policy, benchmarks any contract with a founder's company against a third-party quote, and decides any complaint about the firewall or about either founder. Being recruited now; appointed before the CIC is incorporated.
The founders' companies
Glitterbomb Events is our sister brand and a separate trading company. It sells nights to venues directly and has no ownership of the CIC, no seat on the Council by right and no access to assessment data. 
UNight U.K. Ltd built the training and provides this website; it is the first approved training provider, licensing the training the badge needs to the CIC for nothing, and selling anything beyond it directly. Neither company is paid from accreditation fees.
The party and the badge are kept apart.
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.
- Ambassadors 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 about the firewall goes to the independent chair once appointed, and until then to both founders, is logged, and is reported in the annual report.
All directors' and founders' interests are registered and published in the annual report.
Everyone in the pool.
A published rate
Where ten or more venues in an area are accredited, a third are tested each year on random nights. Elsewhere one in ten. Every venue passes an unannounced visit before its badge is confirmed.
Every report triggers a test
A public complaint, a third-party report or a partner referral puts the venue on the next testing night. The belonging question runs all year in every venue.
Ambassadors
Volunteers from the communities we serve, trained, always in pairs, expenses agreed in advance and paid on receipt, rotated so nobody visits 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. Area pass rates are published every year; venue-level results only as the fact of accreditation or delisting.
How the founders are paid, in public.
The accreditation fee is the CIC's only income from venues. It pays for the platform, the Ambassador programme, insurance, the register and the two founders' work. No accreditation fee income goes to either founder's company.
The two founders are always paid the same amount, set by the independent chair alone under a published policy. Total founder pay is capped at half of unrestricted income in the first two years and 40% after that, falling by band as the organisation grows, with an absolute ceiling of £150,000 each a year, and it is published every year in figures. Anything beyond the policy needs both founders' written consent and is published.
If the CIC ever buys staffed delivery from a company connected with a founder, the contract is benchmarked by the chair against a third-party quote, the connected founder abstains, spend on connected companies never exceeds half of what the CIC spends in a year, and every such contract is listed in the annual report with the benchmark used. The CIC's core, accreditation decisions, the council, complaints, the register and the Ambassador programme, is never contracted out.
Surplus beyond six months' reserves goes to lower prices, free places for small independent venues, the Ambassador fund and new sectors. Sponsors fund places, never outcomes. Nobody pays to fail. Testing is never waived.
Published consultancy day rate for work by a founder beyond their duties: £500 a day, identical for both, for a defined deliverable agreed in writing, counted inside the cap. The mark is licensed only in territories where the people the Ten protects are lawful.
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 on incorporation; a data protection impact assessment precedes the measurement layer. The privacy notice.
Support first. Then, rarely, the badge comes down.
Support
Most visits pass. When one does not, the venue gets the report within 48 hours, sixty days to put it right, a call from us to help plan it, and one re-visit, all in the fee. Nobody pays to fail and nothing is published while a venue is putting things right.
Tell us
Anyone can use the anonymous form below about a venue, about The Glitter Standard itself or about the firewall. Every message is logged, acknowledged within five working days if you leave a way to reach you, and a concern about a venue puts it on the next visiting night. You do not have to give your name.
Appeal, and delisting
A venue may appeal any finding within 28 days: first to an assessor not involved, then to a panel of the Standards Council, with reasons in writing. Delisting happens only after a second fail within twelve months, a false declaration, or a non-inclusive incident the venue failed to respond to. Off the map within seven days, and welcome to reapply after six months.
Tell us what happened.
For anything about a Glittered venue, about how The Glitter Standard itself behaves, or about the firewall with Glitterbomb. Anonymous unless you choose to leave contact details. Every submission is logged. If you are in danger now, call 999.
We keep complaints for two years. We never pass a complainant's details to a venue.
Everything, published.
Every document behind the badge, readable online and as a PDF.
- The Ten
What a venue does, shows and is tested on. Two pages.
PDF · Read online - The Ten in Easy Read
The whole standard in short sentences and plain words.
PDF · Read online - The Venue Pack
The pledge, the door, search and toilets cards, the courtesies list, the wording templates, the Ask for Angela and non-inclusive incident procedures, the declaration and the evidence checklist.
PDF · Read online - Testing Protocol
Who tests, when, what is checked and how Ask for Angela is tested safely.
PDF · Read online - Complaints, Appeals and Delisting Policy
How to complain, how a venue appeals, and exactly when a badge comes down.
PDF · Read online - Accreditation Agreement
What a venue signs: what you agree to, what we agree to, and what happens if it slips.
PDF · Read online - The Ambassador Pack
For our volunteers: the role, the visit, expenses, safety and the agreement they sign.
PDF · Read online - The Standards Council
Who owns the Ten, how members are chosen, the independent chair, and where the mark may go.
PDF · Read online - Policy Pack
Anti-bribery, sponsorship, equality for our own people, safeguarding, whistleblowing and financial controls.
PDF · Read online - Estate Agreement
One page for a pub or bar estate, with the area manager check.
PDF · Read online - The poster
Print-ready A4 with the support lines and the belonging QR code.
PDF - The QR card
Print-ready A6 for tables and the bar.
PDF
We say what we test and test what we say.
Every figure we use is on our evidence page, with its source. We never describe another scheme negatively. What The Glitter Standard publishes is the comparison.
Start with a conversation.
A free 15 minute call, no commitment. Tell us who you are and where you are and we will tell you what the route looks like. Or start with the readiness check.
Email hello@theglitterstandard.co.uk, or use the form and we will reply within two working days. One inbox for accreditation, partnerships, press and the Glitterbomb tour.