Licensing Boards are responsible for making decisions on licensing applications made under the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005. They can also review personal and premises licences, which includes the options of suspending or revoking the licence. Decisions are recorded in the publicly available Licensing Register.

Boards must publish a Licensing Policy Statement every three years and must assess overprovision in the area they cover.

There are between 5 and 10 members. Board members are local councillors elected by the Council onto the Licensing Board. Members must complete a one-day accredited training course, and pass an exam, within 3 months of being elected to the Board.

LSOs have 3 roles:

1. Guidance – to provide guidance on liquor licensing to members of the public and the licensed trade
2. Mediation – to mediate in low level disputes between members of the public and the licensed trade
3. Compliance – to check that licensed premises are complying with the law. (Note: the police are still responsible for enforcing the law.) If there are problems which are not resolved, the LSO can initiate a review of the licence.

This means that LSOs would be expected to visit licensed premises, build good relationships with the licensed trade, have a good knowledge of liquor licensing law and conflict management skills.

LSOs must complete a three-day accredited training course, and pass an exam, within 18 months of being employed in the role.

The Licensing Policy Statement can normally be found on the Council’s website.

The principle behind Local Licensing Forums is to link the people who are affected by licensing decisions to the decision makers, and to feed in the ‘grass roots’ perspective. Licensing touches all of us – be it the benefits or the problems linked to particular premises where you live; the impact of drinking on the work of the police, ambulance, fire and health services; or the litter and anti-social behaviour caused by customers of certain premises.

The Forum’s role is to keep under review the operation of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 in its area and to give advice and make recommendations to the Licensing Board in relation to such matters as the Forum considers appropriate. This will be mainly at a policy level as the Forum cannot comment on individual cases.

The Forum is independent from the Licensing Board but at the same time it shares the common goal of having the local community’s best interests at the heart of its decision making.

The law states that Local Licensing Forums have two roles:

• Review: Forums should review the operation of the Act in their area and keep under review the exercise by the Licensing Board of their functions.
• Advice: Forums should give advice and make recommendations on such matters as the Forum considers appropriate.

The law requires a Local Licensing Forum to have between 5 and 20 members. At least one Licensing Standards Officer for the area must be a member and there should be representatives of:

• Licence holders
• Police
• Health, education or social work
• Young people
• Residents

Apart from having a statutory duty to establish Licensing Forums, councils require to provide Forums with such staff, property and services as the council considers is required for the Forum’s purposes. It is normal for this to include a venue for the Forum meetings, an administration person to take, produce and circulate minutes and a legally qualified person with experience of liquor licensing to provide legal advice if required. It could also include a budget for training of Forum members if considered appropriate.

Information

The Licensing Board must supply data and relevant information to the Forum when requested. Licensing Boards must also consider any recommendations made by the Forum and, if they choose not to follow the Forum’s advice, they must provide reasons to the Forum within 42 days.

At least one Licensing Standards Officer (LSO) sits on the Forum. The LSOs work closely with the Licensing Board, the Licensing Forum, the local police and the licensed trade and can bring information from each of these areas. They can supply information from their own observations made when visiting premises; from any complaints received and some statistical information.

Members of the Forum represent a range of interests in order that they can bring a variety of perspectives on the local situation to the Forum. The type of information they can bring will also vary. For example, representatives of bodies such as the police are more likely to have statistical information, whereas representatives of residents will bring their, and their neighbours’, observations of issues.

The Scottish Government has funded the position of the National Licensing Officer from 2007-2010 to provide support to Forums as they become established. This includes this website www.local-licensing-forums.org.uk for information and it includes an online forum exclusively for Local Licensing Forum members where you can share experiences and good practice.

• What activities will happen on the premises and at what times
• The licensed hours for the premises – i.e. the times when the premises will be open and selling alcohol
• Whether alcohol will be sold for drinking on the premises (on-licence) and/or for taking away (off-sales)
• For on-licence only, whether children will be allowed and if so, what ages, to which parts of the premises and at what times
• The capacity of the premises
• The name of the premises manager

It is good practice for premises to have more than one person trained to this level to provide support for the premises manager. The Licensing Board may require large or busy premises to have several personal licence holders. Certain late opening premises – mainly nightclubs and lap dancing venues – are required by the law to have a personal licence holder on the premises at all times after 1am.

In addition a Licensing Board can choose to attach local conditions to some or all of the premises and occasional licences in their area.

In addition note that licence holders can commit offences by failing to display certain important notices, generally relating to underagers.

Licensing Boards normally give an indication of the sort of licensed hours they think appropriate for premises in their Licensing Policy.

• preventing crime and disorder,
• securing public safety,
• preventing public nuisance,
• protecting and improving public health, and
• protecting children from harm.

Normally the police will use test purchasing where there are concerns about a premises selling alcohol to persons under 18 years of age.

Licensing Boards must include a statement of overprovision in the Licensing Policy. It is for the Licensing Board to decide how they wish to divide their area into localities. They must also consider the different types of premises in the locality and the size of the those premises.