Agenda item

Questions were raised as follows:

Members enquired about the process of notifying stakeholders about new and modified Licencing applications. Concerns were raised about known instances where notification emails for licensing applications had been sent out around two weeks after being received by the Licensing Team. Given the deadline for representations is 28 days from date of receipt of the application, not the date it is publicised, this had caused problems and reduced the time in which stakeholders had to respond. Members suggested that this had happened on at least three occasions, and residents are unhappy as there were cases where representations have been discounted as deadlines were missed by a day.  This delay in process could increase the risk of a judicial reviews if it continued. Members suggested that the performance on timely notifications should be a new Key Performance Indicator which was then reported to the Committee as this was a key metric.

The Chairman agreed this was important and asked officers whether they needed support from Committee to make requests on their behalf and ensure information is shared. The Chairman asked officers to look at the current system for processing and sending out notices, and to consider if they were satisfied with it. The Chairman placed particular importance on the need to process these quickly, and asked whether officers could identify any problems, or whether these instances were just an anomaly.

In a similar vein, Members raised that there had been issues in the past where blue license notices were not displayed within the statutory time period, and it had been decided that officers would go around the City and take photos of the notices, which would appear on their reports to provide evidence of this monitoring. Members also acknowledged that the onus was on the applicant to put the blue notice up.

Members enquired whether officers still checked the blue notices. In response, officers and confirmed they checked the majority of applications but only once the statutory notice period had commenced. It was not always possible to check every blue notice.  Members noted that any application that had not displayed their notice properly, would be instructed to do so and the statutory notice period (28 days) would restart. Members requested all notices be checked and photographed.

RESOLVED – That,

a) the report be noted,

b) officers look at the below and report back to the Committee:

(i) what the current system for processing and sending out notices is

(ii) to consider whether they are satisfied with the system and

(iii) to explain why there was a problem