Working alongside the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Licensing Forum, the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership and the Gambling Commission I was asked to become involved in project work relating to inspections carried out by local authorities under the Gambling Act 2005.
Initially I was apprehensive as to the amount of work and time this would take. In practice however my apprehension was unfounded. Sarah Greenway (Harborough District Council) and I agreed to conduct several inspections In August 2014 with the view to informing a review of the Licensing Authority Assessment templates. We carried out inspections of an alcohol licensed premises and a betting shop using the templates that were launched in September 2013.
The ‘Inspection guidance note for Authorised Local Authority Officers’ template was useful and certainly informed my planning. The ‘Inspection guides’ contained a lot of very good information and clearly related to the Premises Licence conditions, the Gambling Act 2005 and the Code Provisions. The tendency at the time of the inspections however was to read the ‘Inspection guide’ out aloud rather than asking open questions, to gain further information. This caused some confusion. Based upon this experience format changes have been made to the ‘Inspection guides’ to make them more user-friendly; namely each requirement has been given an underlined heading to help identify the area of compliance.
A copy of the ‘Premises information’ template was sent to business owners and left at the premises. An outcome letter was also sent informing the businesses of non compliance and the steps to take. The outcome letter was well received and we have therefore created a suite of outcome letters to assist licensing authorities in communicating the assessment outcome to operators.
In conclusion, I believe the Licensing Authority Assessment templates are good working documents that very much assist Licensing Authorities and their Officers in carrying out inspections of a good, consistent standard. Information is more readily available to businesses by providing detail about the nature of compliance visits and I have personally developed by improving my knowledge, understanding and confidence in the area of gambling regulation.
Ann Neale
Administration and Licensing Compliance Officer
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council.