Consistency is vital

Listening to Dave Sissons of Doncaster LVA giving evidence to MPs the other day about the problems of the new Licensing Act, I found myself getting increasingly angry.

Here was someone faced with a set of legal conundrums he could not possibly unravel himself. His local licensing officer is taking a set of views based on his own interpretation of the current law, which is going unchallenged. This is happening in several parts of the country.

The reason is that licensing has become bogged down at local level. The Department for Culture, Media & Sport, predictably, has left local authorities to work out the details of the Act for themselves - as they will do with gambling in due course. The so-called "Guidance" still does nothing of the sort, and there have been precious few challenges taken up to the High Court to gain a definitive ruling.

This is simply because the problems are small, localised ones and the licensed trade is fragmented on them. There are no major issues for which a combined appeal can be seen as worthwhile. But the effect on individual licensees can be dramatic.

Take Sissons' point about the permanent presence of a personal licence holder while alcohol is being sold. This is being pressed by his licensing authority, but it has already been discounted twice by the DCMS, which has given clear guidance (for once) on how a sole licensee can delegate charge of the bar or shop to an unlicensed employee.

Yet this has by-passed the local council. If they compel all small licensees to have another qualified person always available, this will add to costs and will create major problems for the family-run pub.

But this is only one of a number of requirements now being handed out to the trade by local officers. Most of these stem from their own interpretations of the new law, because they are not guided from any available central resource. The only recourse is to take them to the magistrates if they impose unworkable or unfair conditions, and this is happening in some areas.

In fact, this is all that is happening. So few are the appeals to higher courts that it seems district judges, who sit on technical issues in magistrates' courts, are the ones now calling the shots.

Their decisions are made on the evidence available, are not binding on anyone else and in fact pay no attention to a similar decision taken elsewhere.

So it is quite possible to end up with conflicting decisions on the same subject.

If this happens, what weight should be given to the case? Should other licensing authorities follow it, or take their own line? What if the majority of lawyers think the decision was wrong (as happened about the right of objectors on appeal recently)?

What is needed now is someone to sort out these minor issues and give clear and unambiguous guidance on procedures at this first stage of licensing administration. According to the Government's original plan, licensing was meant to be a purely administrative process, with no problem areas and simple decision-making. It has proved to be far from that, yet no one is stepping in to fill the void.

Guess what name I am going to mention yet again? Yes, that strong, silent body, the Local Authority Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS). Now that all the first

batch of new licences have been issued (have they? I am still waiting for corrections to mine) it would be good to think that this dedicated body will turn its attention to producing a much needed good-practice guide for licensing authorities, giving them a considered view of how to go about this important work in a consistent way.

I should be very happy to advise.