7

North Somerset Council

REPORT TO THE Licensing committee

Date of Meeting: 29th November 2005

Subject of Report: the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003

Town or parish:

Officer/Member presenting: Fiona Robertson/jane day

Key Decision: No

RECOMMENDATIONS

· That members note the contents of this report and the progress achieved to date regarding implementation of the Licensing Act 2003.

· That members agree a timescale for review of the Statement of Licensing Policy.

· That members agree a date for the next full meeting of the Licensing Committee.

1. Summary of Report

This report sets out a summary of the progress to date regarding the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 following the 1^st appointed day, February 6^th 2005 and outlines the income generated from this new legislation and the scale of the work undertaken by various Council departments. It is discussed for consideration by the Committee to reach a decision regarding the review of North Somerset Statement of Licensing Policy, to give information to facilitate discussion and share experiences of the process so far and to determine the next meeting of full Licensing Committee.

2. Policy

North Somerset as the Licensing Authority sets out to review its Statement of Licensing Policy at least every three years as is required by the Act. This is also in accordance with directorate priority DE8 to ensure the effective introduction of the new licensing controls and the community strategy and corporate priority ‘Building Safer Communities’ of reducing violence and anti-social behaviour and reducing crime, the fear of crime and anti social behaviour and increasing community safety through licensing policies.

3. Details

This report is designed to increase Members awareness of the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003, the workload involved, the process, budget details, officer time and the impact on other teams. There will also be an opportunity during the next item on the agenda to discuss the experiences of the Sub-Committees during this transitional stage.

3.1 Statement of Licensing Policy

Section 5 of the 2003 Act requires a licensing authority to prepare and publish a statement of licensing policy every three years. Council adopted North Somerset Licensing Policy on 23^rd November 2004. During any three year period, the policy must be kept under review and the licensing authority may make such revisions to it as it considers appropriate, for instance in light of feedback from the local community on whether the statutory objectives are being met.

It is felt that until the Act becomes operational in its full effect from the second appointed day, the 24^th November 2005, it is difficult to assess the effect of new licences issued which had regard to the policy already in existence. It is therefore a recommendation to the Committee that the policy is reviewed in 18 months time to allow a full assessment of licences issued under the transitional period of the Act and new licences granted thereafter. This will allow licences to be effective over the summer period and for the duration of public holidays throughout the year.

3.2 Transitional Period

The term the ‘transitional period’ is taken to be the period between the first appointed day and the second appointed day. This 9 month period extended from 6^th February to 24^th November 2005 and it was the licensing authority’s aim to ensure as smooth, efficient and rapid a transition as possible. It was estimated that North Somerset Council as the Licensing Authority would deal with approximately 500 premises licences and 700 personal licences.

The actual number of applications received amounted to nearly 700 and 900 respectively. Statistics show that 67 % of personal licence applications and 81 % of premise and club applications were received in the last week in July and the first week of August. This placed a considerable strain on the licensing team, as there is a statutory time scale for determining applications for both conversion and variation.

It was also apparent that many applicants required considerable assistance in completing application forms despite extensive information being offered on the Council website and after numerous workshops and presentations by the licensing team to bodies likely to be affected by this new legislation. It is estimated that more than 50 % of applicants received approximately 1-2 hours officer dedicated time and assistance.

3.3 Hearings

In section 13, the 2003 Act defines three key groups that have important roles in the context of applications, inspection, enforcement and reviews of licences. The first group, ‘authorised persons’, are bodies empowered by the Act to carry out inspection and enforcement roles. The second group, ‘interested parties’ are the bodies or individuals who are entitled to make representations to licensing authorities on applications for the grant, variation or review of premises licences. In addition, interested parties may themselves seek a review of a premise licence. The third group, ‘responsible authorities’ include public bodies that must be fully notified of applications and that are entitled to make representations to the licensing authority in relation to the application for the grant, variation or review of a licence.

As a result of representations from the second and third group as defined above 72 instructions were made to Democratic Services to arrange hearings to enable determination of the licence applications. Of these 72 instructions:

· 5 were withdrawn without notice of hearing going out

· 25 were withdrawn on the day or between notice of hearing and the agenda being issued

· There were 42 actual hearings, the majority being listed for September.

The paperwork that had to be issued in accordance with the Act was extensive. Every Hearing had to be arranged within a set period laid down in the Act. Notice of hearing had to be issued to the applicant, the responsible authorities making representation and interested parties. These notifications had to be issued 10 days before the hearing well before the normal time of 5 days for public access to committee information. This was long before the final report was prepared and therefore there had to be a further set of papers sent out with all the requisite information for a hearing to take place. The cost of this procedure for the 42 hearings amounted to approximately £10,000.

3.4 Appeals

Schedule 5 of the Act deals with appeals and parties aggrieved by decisions of the licensing authority are also set out in this schedule. Other than in the case of personal licences, an appeal has to be made to the magistrate’s court for the area in which the premises concerned are situated.

An appeal is commenced by the giving of a notice of appeal by the appellant to the justices’ chief executive for the magistrates’ court within a period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the appellant was notified by the licensing authority of the decision to be appealed against. The local authority will always be the respondent to the appeal, but in cases where a favourable decision has been made for an applicant licence holder, club or premises user against the representations of a responsible authority or an interested party or the objections of the chief officer of police, the holder of the premises or personal licence or club premises certificate will also be a respondent to the appeal and the person who made the relevant representation or the chief officer of police will be appellants.

To date North Somerset Magistrates have notified North Somerset Licensing Authority of 1 confirmed appeal, The Nightjar Public House, Worle, Weston-super-Mare. This appeal was lodged by the licence holder who is aggrieved at the licence hours granted and the conditions attached to the licence. Several other possible notifications have been made but in absence of the correct fee to accompany the appeal they are yet to be confirmed. These include,

· The Golden Crown, Portishead (Takeaway)

· Royal Oak, Copse Rd, Clevedon (Public House)

· Old Inn, Pauls Causeway, Congresbury (Public House)

· Clevedon Cricket Club, Esmond Grove, Clevedon (Club)

On receipt of notification of an appeal the process is as follows:

· Licensing team instruct business legal litigation to act on behalf of the authority

· Letters are sent by the licensing team to all original interested parties and responsible authorities who made representation requesting confirmation as to their willingness to be a witness

· On receipt of willingness to be a witness a further letter is sent requesting a statement of witness.

· A barrister is instructed to act on behalf of the licensing authority. For the 1 confirmed appeal case North Somerset have instructed Counsel well versed in licensing issues and who has conducted appeals for other bordering authorities. Rates charged by Counsel are in the region of £200:00 per hour with an estimated case fee of £2,000:00.

The Nightjar appeal is listed for hearing at Flax Bourton Magistrates 19^th December 2005.

3.5 Income

3.5.1 Environmental & Consumer Services

The predicted income based on period 7 accounting monitor equates to £187,040. The projected expenditure on additional salaries for 2005/06, e.g. to implement the Licensing Act 2003 = £60,474. The income was based on an assumption of 700 licences x £190:00 (average cost of application) equalling £133,000. A deliberate underestimate of income was made to ensure that the expenditure of the salaries for the additional personnel recruited to enable implementation of the Act would be within budget. Staffing structure and salaries include an agency staff member who has been recruited to the team for 1 year. These costs do not take into account the additional printing and stationery costs.

Members should also be aware that the management structure of the group was changed to ensure the commitment of a dedicated manager for the licensing function. The current Acting Licensing Manager, Jane Day was recruited from the Food and Safety Team resulting in a vacancy of her substantive position for over 12 months to facilitate the acting up salary. Additionally Democratic Services received an extra £24,000 in the 2005/06 MTFF for an additional Democratic Services Officer to assist with this work.

Members should be aware that the additional income is being considered as part if the wider Development and Environment budgetary proposals for 2006/07.

3.6 Impact on Teams

In addition to the vacancy sustained within the food and safety team to allow for Jane Day’s acting up position as dedicated Licensing Manager, it is useful for Members to be aware of the impact on other teams within the Council as a result of this new legislation.

There are 8 ‘responsible authorities’ (RA’s) under the Act who all act as statutory consultees on applications. It is worth mentioning that 3 of these RA’s fall under the Environmental and Consumer Services group within the D&E directorate, these being trading standards, environmental protection and health and safety, with licensing also falling under this service remit. Development Control also act as an RA equating to 4 of the 8 RA’s plus the licensing team all falling under the one directorate. This resulted in considerable resources having to be redirected to enable the new legislation to be implemented whilst dealing with existing workloads.

As far as the Democratic Services are concerned, there had been sufficient recruitment to cover the implementation of the Act due to the hearings of individual licences where there were representations. Unfortunately, there were two resignations during the transitional period which meant that staffing was stretched and without the professionalism of the members of staff in the team, the arrangements and clerking of the Hearings may not have been organised. This did happen in a neighbouring authority where applicants went straight to the Magistrates Court and the authority incurred extra expense.

Licensing Committee

It is proposed to have the next meeting of the Licensing Committee at approximately the same time next year. This will enable more information to be collated on the actual licences in operation. As already mentioned in this report, the new licences do not take effect until 24^th November. It is only after this time that the Committee will be able to see what problems have arisen. Licences that have been issued can be reviewed by the Licensing Authority and the Police. The Police are likely to request the Licensing Authority for a review on information that they themselves have gathered. The Licensing Authority is likely to respond to complaints or by inspections that they have carried out on licensed premises. Once this information has been gathered the Committee will have much more of an idea of how the Act is operating and consider matters that may need to be considered in a review of the Licensing Policy. It is envisaged that this Committee meeting will start the review of the Licensing Policy but that the Policy itself will not actually be reviewed until 18 months has elapsed from the Act coming into force.

3.7 Conclusion

The implementation of the Licensing Act went well, especially where most of the applications were received just before the date given for applications to be submitted. The Authority has only had a few appeals against the decisions made by the Licensing Committee. Whether the new Act operates effectively will only be seen once it comes into operation on 24^th November and it is only after a period of 18 months that the Licensing Policy can be properly reviewed to consider any alterations that may be needed once licences come into force.

4. Consultation

None

5. Financial Implications

As detailed in the report

6. Equality Implications

None

7. Corporate Implications

None

8. Options considered

None

Author

Fiona Robertson Jane Day

Solicitor, Democratic Services manager Acting Licensing Manager

Ext 4686 Ext 4528

Background Papers

Guidance issued under S182 Licensing Act 2003

Development and Environment business Plan 2004 –07

North Somerset Community Strategy – Our vision for North Somerset 2004-2025