Agenda item

Claire Francis (Public Protection Manager – Community Protection) has prepared the attached update on behalf of the Public Protection Licensing Team and will give an overview at the meeting.

Claire Francis (Public Protection Manager – Community Protection) referred to the update on behalf of the Public Protection Licensing Team that was circulated with the agenda and highlighted the following:

·            With England making it to the final of the 2024 Euros this meant that the additional licensing hours were available to some premises.  The team worked closely with Wiltshire Police and attended the Silver meetings following each match – this ensured joint working to respond to any issues and to offer advice when necessary.  The Licensing web pages were updated to share the details of the temporary changes and advice;

·            The Licensing and Food Safety teams had met with the Longleat management team to discuss the major events they had planned for this year and Officers had also visited the WOMAD festival in July which has around 40,000 attending;

·            An Event Safety Advisory Group (ESAG) meeting was held in August for the Icons of the Sky event at Longleat (held over the past weekend) and there was good attendance from partner agencies with a useful discussion on how to plan for the event.  Claire had attended training on Safety Advisory Groups and also attended one of the Swindon Council ESAG meetings to identify further good practice;

·            The team had been successful in a bid for some additional enforcement funding which had allowed them to increase one of their Officers to full time hours up until 31 March 2025.  This additional time would be used to focus on updating the process for suspending licences when licence holders don’t pay the annual fees.  There were currently more than 200 licences that needed suspending.  The additional hours would also mean that they would be reviewing how they work with the Police and Immigration service.  A meeting with the Police was planned for this week to look at how they can further enhance how they share information and intelligence;

·            The team were reporting an increase in new premises licence applications for a variety of types of premises;

·            The move to the new Public Protection IT Service (Arcus Global) went live in June following years in the planning.  The team were working hard to sort out some teething issues and to adjust working processes to allow them develop web based application forms and payments.  A temporary Technical Support Officer had been appointed to assist with the implementation and backlog of work.  The system would be able to provide useful data and reports which could be shared with the Committee at the next meeting; and

·            A Sub Committee hearing was organised in August to determine the outcome of a Temporary Event Notice (TEN), but the Applicant withdrew the TEN prior to the hearing.  A new premises licence application for a premises in Bradford-on-Avon was due to be determined on 25 September following the receipt of a number of representations.

The Chairman asked if an overview of the TEN application process could be circulated to Town and Parish Councils and via the Council’s social media sites as a reminder as it was likely people would now be planning for their Christmas events.  Claire Francis reported that all of the relevant information could be found on the Council’s website, that it was hoped that the TEN application process would be able to be completed fully online in the future and that she would liaise with the Communications Team to circulate reminder guidance.

The Committee asked the following questions which included but were not limited to:

·            Would the new Arcus system be able to provide access for Councillors and members of the public to view the licences that had been granted for premises?  It was noted that there were some issues around data protection but that the team were aiming to be able to share public registers although it would take some time to add that amount of information to the database and so a current timescale for this was not available.

·            Was there anything Councillors could do with TENS applications to avoid late applications being made?  It was noted that Councillors could encourage their constituents to submit applications as soon as possible so that any issues with missing or incorrect information etc could be addressed.

Resolved:

1.          That the Committee note the update on behalf of the Public Protection Licensing Team.

2.          That Officers liaise with the Council’s Communications Team to circulate reminder guidance on the TENS application process to Councillors, Town and Parish Councils and via the Councils social media sites prior to the Christmas period.