Rapid TENs to aid the trade

It must be the season. No less than three consultations were published by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) last month, just before our winter break.

I do not have the space to deal with them all this issue, so my comments on the "relaxation" for small-scale live music events (which does not amount to much for the trade) will have to wait until next week.

Why it has taken so long to bring these other measures forward is not clear. It may be that correcting "mistakes" in legislation is not popular with civil servants, or that making too many changes too soon is seen as a confession that the original Act was not perfectly drafted.

What is, of course, popular with politicians is to be seen to be responding to comments and criticisms made by those most affected — but this is, of course, selective. The poor old circuses (not many votes there) are still labouring under a system that takes no account of their travelling status and the fact that they have to apply for a new premises licence everywhere they go!

But the new proposals on temporary event notices (TENs) are to be welcomed. It takes us back, more or less, to the old procedures for occasional licences and "extensions", which long-serving licensees among our readership will remember well.

You could turn up at the magistrates' court in the morning, having notified the police, and get permission for a special event happening within the next few days. It was a simple system (OK, you had to get to the court), but it worked perfectly well for the licensed trade.

TENs, on the other hand, are currently inflexible and totally incapable of dealing with some common occurrences such as a postponement or a re-scheduling. If an event is cancelled for a Saturday night, you have no time to reschedule it for the following Saturday because you need 10 working days between the lodging of the TEN and the new date.

This has caused great frustration in the trade, as I know full well from my postbag. The event itself has already received "approval" from the police, so to speak, but the changed date is unacceptable to the licensing authority, who need to play it "by the book".

It is this rigidity in the new system, made worse by the attitude of some local authorities, that is its greatest weakness. Their most popular hobby, it seems to me, must be painting by numbers. The 10 working days rule has been so strictly applied that even the most harmless events have come unstuck through a single day too few. In fact, it is 11 working days, because the date of the event does not count.

So in future, as long as the police have sufficient notice and can issue a confirmation, a shorter time scale will be allowed where needed. Coupled with the new opportunity for electronic applications, this should speed up the process considerably. However, there is one area where there is the possibility of a difference of opinion.

A further adjustment is proposed to be made to the requirement for the police to respond "within 48 hours". In future, this should be expressed in "working days" because a notice given on a Friday evening, for example, may not be picked up by the police until the deadline has passed.

The debate is over whether the police should be given two or three working days to object. It is clear that the DCMS hints an extension to three could cause problems and it may be that the period is kept to two.

The consultation period for this and the other two proposals ends on 9 February. The date of implementation will be announced later.