Home Office consults on targeted local alternatives to personal licences

The Home Office has launched a consultation on the introduction of targeted, local alternatives to personal licences to sell alcohol.

In a written ministerial statement, the Minister of State for Crime Prevention Jeremy Browne said: “The system of personal licences is intended to ensure that alcohol is sold responsibly. At present, all alcohol sales must be authorised by a personal licence holder. Personal licence holders must have completed training on the risks alcohol can present if handled irresponsibly. They must also notify licensing authorities if they commit any offence which suggests they may be unsuitable as a manager at licensed premises.

“Extensive discussions with partners in the police, local government and the licensed trade during the recent Alcohol Strategy consultation suggested that this system may not always be the most targeted and proportionate way to ensure alcohol is sold responsibly.”

According to the consultation paper, problems with the current system include:

• Although all alcohol sales must be at least authorised by a personal licence holder, it is not always the case, in practice, that a personal licence holder is present on the premises at all times to do this. No person working at licensed premises except the Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) is required to hold a personal licence. “All this would seem to restrict the system’s ability to prevent those with criminal records and a poor understanding of alcohol harms from working at, or even managing, a licensed premises.”
• “Perhaps most fundamentally,” the system is not targeted. “It is a national, blanket requirement. All premises, from the riskiest to the quietest, must comply with it – and incur significant costs in training, application fees and criminal records checks as a result.” The Government said it questioned whether this was appropriate for all licensed premises.

Under the Home Office’s proposal, personal licences would be abolished. Existing legislation would be maintained or strengthened in a number of ways, with the Government:

1. Amending the mandatory conditions to require all alcohol sales to be made or authorised by the DPS, rather than a personal licence holder;
2. Allowing the police to object under s. 37 of the Licensing Act 2003 to a new DPS based on the crime prevention objective in general, rather than only in ‘exceptional circumstances’;
3. Allowing licensing authorities to require a criminal records declaration with each new change of a DPS; and
4. Allowing those who either are named as the DPS in relation to a premises licence or have accredited training to give up to 50 Temporary Event Notices (TENs) a year; those without would be limited to giving five.”

The Home Office said it could keep the national benchmarks for training and criminal records checks.

“At present, these ensure that a level playing field for business exists across the country,” the consultation paper said. “In the event that personal licences were abolished, these benchmarks would still ensure that, if training or criminal records checks were required at a premises, businesses would not have to comply with different standards from one licensing authority to another.”

The Home Office added that – to make any conditions requiring training easy to enforce for the police and licensing authorities – it would work with training providers to ensure that training certificates could be provided in a readily available and easily recognisable form.

The overall proposal could save businesses, including small and medium enterprises, an estimated £10m a year if taken forward, “while keeping a focus on measures to tackle crime and disorder at licensed premises”, Jeremy Browne said in the written ministerial statement.

The consultation, details of which can be viewed here, runs until 7 November.