Agenda item

Report of the Director of Markets & Consumer Protection (copy attached).

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Markets and Consumer Protection which explained that the City Corporation was required to set annual fees for those premises requiring a licence under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 as a sex establishment. The report outlined the recent case law which had indicated that the process for setting the fees must be robust and that income received through the licensing process must not exceed the cost of administering that process.

It was noted that the report would also be submitted to the Port Health & Environmental Services Committee along with a request for clarification on whether the Licensing Committee had been given responsibility for licensing all sex establishments or just for Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs). The Chairman explained that the terminology used in previous reports had been an oversight and that the intention had been for the Port Health & Environmental Services Committee to transfer responsibility for licensing of all sex establishments to the Licensing Committee.

A discussion took place and a Member queried the difference between the proposed fees for an application for an SEV and an application for a sex shop/sex cinema. The Licensing Manager explained that the resources required for dealing with an SEV application were deemed to be higher than that for dealing with applications for other sex establishments hence the cost to be recovered through fees was higher.

It was noted that the fee set initially for SEVs had taken into account the large costs associated with the process of adopting and implementing the SEV licensing regime along with the preparation of the policy relating to applications but following a recent decision of the Court of Appeal (the “Hemmings” judgement), those costs were not included in the calculation of the revised fee proposed in the report.

The Deputy Chairman pointed out that the cost of the initial consultation was to help this Committee and the Court of Common Council to reach the correct policy approach for SEVs. It was now perverse to offset the cost of the consultation onto licensed premises and would potentially open the City Corporation to judicial review.

It was noted that the administrative costs of holding a Licensing (Hearing) Sub Committee to consider sex establishment applications were taken into account in the fees set out in the report and that a full breakdown would be circulated to Members in due course.

RESOLVED – That Members agree the proposed fees for 2013/14 (as set out in Appendix 1 of the report).