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THE LICENSING (SCOTLAND) BILL: AN ANALYSIS OF CONSULTATION RESPONSES
SEVEN: MONITORING AND COMPLIANCE
20. Do you agree that Liquor Licensing Standards Officers should be employed by local authorities rather than by Licensing Boards?
7.1 More than three quarters of 81 responses to this question were positive. Supporters agreed that LLSOs should not be employed by boards on the grounds of integrity and impartiality, the question being posed of how an LLSO could give evidence to a body of which they were an employee.
7.2 Amongst those who both agreed and disagreed with the idea, and across the spectrum of consultee types, there were concerns about how the posts would be funded. One consultee raised concerns about the exact role of the LLSOs in terms of the hours and patterns of work they would have and whether they would have legal powers to call on police back-up.
21. Do you have further views on how a tiered complaints system should work and what the range of sanctions should be?
7.3 Fifty-nine respondents commented. Although many merely conveyed agreement with the proposals in the White Paper, around twenty offered a view on how the system could be operated.
7.4 The need for there to be a clear range of sanctions was highlighted and suggested 'first level' sanctions included verbal reprimand, warning letter, orders for retraining and the provision of guidance. A few suggested the introduction of a points system similar to the one for driving offences: different sanctions would attract points depending on their severity, and the accumulation of a particular number of points would prompt more serious action. A couple suggested following the sanctions set out in the Licensing Act 2003 for England and Wales.
22. In view of the rigorous nature of monitoring under the new system and the tiered approach to complaints and sanctions, do you agree that licence suspension should take immediate effect until a hearing on interim suspension before a Sheriff?
7.5 Seventy-nine consultees included this question, with more than two thirds assenting to the proposal. More than half of those who agreed with the question represented boards and local authorities, while the remainder extended across bodies representing health, fire safety, police, DAATs, and religious and other community interests. Several pointed out that suspension was only likely to be resorted to after a series of other sanctions had been attempted without success.
7.6 Just under half of those who rejected this proposal represented the alcohol trade or entertainment sector; the rest were distributed across consultee categories. Reasons for disagreeing that a board should have the power to order immediate suspension before a sheriff hearing were that this was contrary to natural justice in that the board would be acting as judge and jury and denying the licensee the right to earn a living. There was concern about the effect immediate suspension would have on a business (especially small ventures) in the longer term - even if the sheriff were to reject the board's case against the licensee.
7.7 It was suggested that alternatively the police could be allowed to apply to a local sheriff for immediate closure in really serious cases.
7.8 Across response types, the need to speed up the system for hearings was noted, so that sheriff hearings would have to happen within, for instance, one or two weeks of the suspension.
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