Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 Under the requirements of the Gambling Act 2005, every Licensing Authority is required to review its Statement of Principles, every three years. This report is asking the Committee to consider the proposed changes to the Statement before it is circulated for comment amongst the public and business community.

The Licensing Committee is asked to agree that:

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 The cost of carrying out the consultation exercise will be met within existing budgets.

4 THE REPORT

4.1 The Gambling Act 2005 created a new system of licensing and regulation for commercial gambling. Amongst other changes, it gives to local authorities new and extended responsibilities for licensing premises for gambling. In some cases (such as gaming machine arcades), those build on existing responsibilities. But in other major areas, including betting, casino gaming and bingo, they transfer to local authorities responsibilities which previously lay with local licensing justices.

4.2 The new Act came fully into force in September 2007. In preparation, each licensing authority was required to develop, consult on and publish a statement of principles, which must set out the principles which the authority proposes to apply in exercising its licensing functions under the Act.

4.3 To assist in this process, the Gambling Commission issued Guidance to licensing authorities on the manner in which they are to exercise their functions under the Act, and the principles to be applied by them, in exercising those functions. Licensing authorities are required to take account of all such Guidance when formulating a statement of principles. Members are asked to note that updated Guidance by the Gambling Commission is likely to be published later this month. In this regard, any new advice regarding the formulation of a statement of principles, will be taken into account.

4.4 At the meeting of the Council in November 2006 the Statement of Principles was adopted and was put in place on the 1^st January 2007. The Guidance states that the Statement will last for a maximum of three years, but can be reviewed and revised by the authority at any time. Therefore the current Statement of Principles is due to be reviewed this year so that a revised version can be in place for the 1^st January 2010.

4.5 A revised draft Statement is provided in appendix A following amendments from officers. The Committee is being asked to consider the document before it is released for general consultation. A copy of the responses to the consultation exercise, and the comments of officers to the responses, will be brought back to a future meeting of this Committee for consideration.

4.6 Because there have been significant changes to the section of the Statement in relation to casinos then the proposed revisions have been separated out and provided in appendix B. This section now includes information on both the stage one and stage two application process and the means by which the final applications will be judged.

5 RISK MANAGEMENT

5.1 A risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations has been undertaken, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.

6 EQUALITIES

6.1 The equality groups will be included within the consultation exercise and the consultation will be carried out in accordance with the equalities requirements for consultations.

7 CONSULTATION

7.1 Section 151 Finance Officer; Chief Executive; Monitoring Officer

7.2 The consultation on the statement of principles will be carried out in accordance with the Council's consultation policy.

8 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

8.1 Social Inclusion; Customer Focus; Sustainability; Property; Young People; Human Rights; Corporate.

9 ADVICE SOUGHT

9.1 The Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer (Strategic Director - Support Services) have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication.