GLASGOW BOARD ACCEPTING SURRENDERS OF NON REFRESHED / NON NOTIFIED BY 30 NOVEMBER PERSONAL LICENCES TILL 15 DECEMBER
BOARD’S STATEMENT TODAY 09 DECEMBER
The Board has identified 1250 Personal Licence Holders that have failed to provide the required notification by 30 November and of these 1250 individuals, 100 are also DPMs for Licensed Premises in Glasgow. The affected licensed premises have been written to in order to advise of the need to intimate a new Premises Manager.
This Licensing Board agrees with the consensus opinion that a Board is required to take a proactive step to revoke a licence and that revocation is not simply a tacit action of the failure to notify.
If a Personal Licence Holder does not produce their notification within the statutory timescale then there is no action available to them to cure the defect that will result in revocation of their Licence – however there are still able to surrender their licence if the Licensing Board has not yet taken the proactive step to revoke their Licence.
In Glasgow the procedural approach will be to prepare a list of Personal Licence Holders who, as of a specified date, have failed to comply with section 87 of the 2005 Act. This list will be signed by the Clerk/Depute Clerks under delegated powers and affect the revocation of the relevant Personal Licences as of 5pm on the date on which the list is signed.
To be clear: In Glasgow no “delegated list” has yet been signed; we have not yet revoked any Personal Licences under section 87(3) and no letters have yet been sent to Personal Licence Holders advising that their licence has been revoked. To date, all we have done is identify the 1250 Personal Licence Holders whose licence will be revoked.
The Board is in a position to revoke these licences. However, taking into account the emerging picture of “Black Monday” and in particularly the very real impact on businesses and individuals, the Glasgow Board has determined that these Personal Licences affected by the 30 November deadline will now be revoked on Monday 15 December 2014 at 5pm. If you have clients who are impacted by the 30 November deadline and have not yet elected to surrender their licence then such surrenders can be made until 5pm Monday 15 December.
Moving forward, the general position will be as outlined above – i.e. Personal Licences can be surrendered up to the point where the Board takes a proactive step to the revoke the licence.
For further clarity, I would also confirm that our customer service staff have been briefed on this position as set out above and should be able to assist you accordingly through the usual channels. If you encounter any difficulties or require further clarification on our position please let me know.
ROBIN MORTON QUESTIONS
I have an exam question for you!!
If a PL holder surrenders their licence in this fashion and seeks to reapply what does the Board require as evidence of training?
1. The 5+ year old original SCPLH certificate
2. The above plus refresher certificate
3. A new SCPLH certificate
4. None of the above?
GLASGOW BOARD RESPONSE
Who doesn’t like a good exam question on a Tuesday morning!?
The view of the Glasgow Board would be as follows:
The original certificate will be accepted even if it was obtained over 5 years ago. I’m aware that some Boards take the view that certificates obtained before a certain date are no longer valid due to changes in the SQA standards for obtaining the certificate however in Glasgow we will accept a SCPLH certificate irrespective of the date it was issued. To be clear there is no need to obtain a fresh SCPLH certificate.
There is also no need to lodge the SCPLH/R certificate when applying for a new licence. In fact I’ll go a little bit further here and suggest that a SCPLH/R certificate obtained under a surrendered licence is void once the licence is surrendered. Section 87 would appear to intimate that a licence holder has to comply with the refresher training requirement within the five year period from the date their licence was issued. If a Refresher training certificate is obtained before the new licence is issued then the licence holder is not, arguably, complying with the training requirement of their new licence – since the certificate was not obtained within the relevant five year period.
For bonus credit I’ll also point out that the provisions of the 2005 Act entitle Licensing Boards to refer an application for Personal Licence to a meeting of the Board if the applicant has previously surrendered their licence within a year of the new application. For Licence Holders surrendering their licence to avoid revocation the Glasgow Board will not be applying this provision and will aim to deal with the applications in the normal delegated manner.
Our customer service staff have been briefed on what to accept from applicants and this should be the position being relayed to anyone surrendering and reapplying for a licence. As mentioned in the previous email if you encounter any difficulties let me know.
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