Contact your Parish Council

MAIDSTONE BOROUGH COUNCIL

LICENSING ACT 2003 COMMITTEE

26 AUGUST 2010

REPORT OF HEAD OF DEMOCRATIC SERVICES

Report prepared by Neil Harris 

1.           HOME OFFICE CONSULTATION – “REBALANCING THE LICENSING ACT”

1.1        Issue for Decision

1.1.1   To consider the Home Office consultation document entitled “Rebalancing the Licensing Act” and respond to the questions set out within the consultation document.

1.2        Recommendation of Head of Democratic Services

1.2.1   That the proposed responses to the questions set out in the Home Office consultation entitled “Rebalancing the Licensing Act” as set out in Appendix B to the report be agreed.

1.3        Reasons for Recommendation

1.3.1   The Home Office has recently issued the consultation paper “Rebalancing the Licensing Act” seeking the views of various consultees on a number of significant changes to the Licensing Act 2003. A copy of this document is attached at Appendix A. This consultation was only published on 28 July with the deadline for comments of 8 September a period of only 6 weeks.

1.3.2   Your officers have considered the document and have attached at Appendix B a suggested response to the questions posed in the paper.

1.4        Alternative Action and why not Recommended

1.4.1   The committee could decide to not respond but to do so would miss an opportunity to influence government thinking about a significant change to licensing policy.

1.5        Impact on Corporate Objectives

1.5.1   None directly from responding to this paper

1.6        Risk Management

1.6.1   None

1.7        Other Implications

1.7.1    

1.7.2   The legal implications are dealt with in the body of the report   

1.8        Relevant Documents

1.8.1   Appendices

1.8.2   Home Office paper entitled “Rebalancing the Licensing Act”

1.8.3   Proposed Response to Home Office paper

1.8.4   Background Documents

1.8.5   None

IS THIS A KEY DECISION REPORT? x     Yes                                               No     If yes, when did it first appear in the Forward Plan?   ..     This is a Key Decision because: ..   .       Wards/Parishes affected: ..   ..