Agenda item

Francesca Bell, PPASB and Licensing Service Manager

a)    presented a report to update Licensing Committee on the result of the consultation on the Gambling Act 2005 Triennial Review of the Statement of Licensing Policy, under the Gambling Act 2005.

b)    explained the background to the consultation process covering the following main points:

·         The Gambling Act 2005 required a Licensing Authority to publish its statement of Licensing Policy at least every three years; the current statement was due to expire on 31 January 2022.

·         The draft policy, as detailed within Appendix A of the report, was forwarded to a total of 47 persons/organisations and to every member of the Licensing Committee as well as being placed on the Councils website.

·         The consultation period commenced on 26 August 2021 and concluded on 8 October 2021. A total of 2 responses were received.

·         The first response was received on behalf of Gambleaware who were thankful for inclusion in the consultation and offered guidance, recommending two documents published by the Local Government Association, as detailed at Appendix B to the report, be incorporated into the policy. It was felt that reference to such non statutory documents was not required, however, they would serve as a valuable tool alongside the policy when performing functions under the Act.

·         The second response was received from Gosschalks Solicitors on behalf of the Betting and Gambling Council, (Appendix C referred)

·         Contact was made with the author of the letter and points raised were discussed. It was felt that the policy was currently sufficiently broad in nature. Each application for a premises licence was dealt with on its own merits, additional conditions could be imposed as required/if a particular issue emerged when a risk assessment was conducted.

·         The review of policy saw amendments to include updated GDPR and Data Protection elements that had arisen since the policy was last reviewed.

c)    requested that consideration be given to the policy prior to recommendation to full Council for approval.

The Chair thanked Francesca for a thorough report and welcomed any comments and questions from members. The following suggested amendments emerged from discussions held:

·         The format of the policy felt inconsistent.

·         There was a lack of blank lines between paragraphs.

·         Throughout, there was reference to both ‘the licensing authority’ and ‘this licensing authority’. It was concluded that as this would be a policy for the City of Lincoln Council, consistent use of ‘the licensing authority’ would be sufficient.

·         At page 4 of the policy, section 5.2, there was no indentation of the words following ‘the policy is:’ For clarity, it was suggested that this action be added to the final policy document

·         At page 3 of the policy, section 2.11, the hyperlink to the Lincoln City Profile should be embedded in the document with a link to take the reader directly to it.

·         At page 3 of the policy, section 2.4, due to partnership work with County Licensing groups, reference to a commonality of approach with other Local Authorities would be useful.

·         At page 16 of the policy, section 2.3, revision of verb use, ‘the Local Authority will expect’ to ‘the Local Authority will adopt as approved’ was necessary to clarify future activities.

The Chair gave thanks for comments received.

RESOLVED that subject to relevant amendments to the policy as detailed above, the Gambling Act 2005 Statement of Principles Policy 2022-2025 be referred to full Council for approval.