The Scottish Government

Gambling Act 2005: Outcome of Review of Scottish Gambling Premises Licence Fees

1. The Scottish premises licence fees were reviewed by a team from the Scottish Government's Consultancy Network in Autumn 2008. The Review Team provided a report to the Head of Criminal Law and Licensing Division in December and a copy of it is below.

2. A very low response rate to the fee review prevented the Review Team from robustly assessing whether the current fee levels allow Licensing Boards to achieve full cost-recovery. The report states that the main reason for the low response rate was that most Boards could not provide gambling-administration costs, either because they did not record these or were unable to disaggregate such costs from other (non-gambling) costs incurred by them. The Review Team considered that better cost-data information needs to be kept by Boards to help inform future fee reviews.

3. One of the report's recommendations is that Licensing Boards should be encouraged (and supported where necessary) to devise adequate systems to collect and record consistently cost-data on the administration of all gambling-related functions. Subject to such systems being put in place, the report also recommends that a further review should be carried out in summer 2010 based on the previous full year's data.

4. Given all the other activities Licensing Boards are currently facing in the run-up to full implementation of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005, the Scottish Government appreciates that devising more robust systems for recording gambling-administration costs over the next few months is unlikely to be accorded a high priority. However, Boards will wish to reflect on the report's comments on how and when best such matters could be addressed, perhaps discussing this with COSLA.

5. The Scottish Government is of the view that there is insufficient evidence to merit any changes at present to the premises fee levels, so the current fees (as determined by SSI/2007/197) will continue in force for 2009/10. The timing and conduct of a further fee review will be considered in due course and will take account of all relevant prevailing circumstances.

Fees Review Oct 2008 - Report

Premises Licensing

Miscellaneous Fees

Where temporary use notices apply (SI 2007/3157 refers), the fee payable for giving such notice in relation to premises in Scotland is £350. The fee payable for issuing a copy of such a notice in Scotland is £25

Permits

Miscellaneous Fees