Licensing application forms are a travesty'

Next week sees the start of transition, when up to 177,000 pubs, clubs, restaurants and other licensed premises can begin making applications for the new-style premises and personal licences. But applicants will do it in a climate of uncertainty and confusion.

Why is this? Because in spite of numerous Government pronouncements on how clear, straightforward and less expensive the new system is to be, not only applicants but also the licensing authorities have scores of unanswered questions, both on the Licensing Act 2003 itself and the regulations which have recently been produced.

I have never known a time when I was so inundated with requests for clarification of the law ­ and in several cases I cannot give a definitive answer because there isn't one. All I can do is repeat what has been said by Department for Culture, Media & Sport's officials ­ "that is for the courts to decide".

What an abdication of responsibility! The appeal courts are meant to be used as a place of last resort for the few instances where the law needs a specific interpretation. It is unprecedented, in my experience, for a government to be so unsure of its own legislation that it is handing over interpretive responsibility even before the laws take effect.

Indeed, an indication of how unsettled the law now is, comes from the magistrates themselves, who have been busily preparing for a raft of appeals from applicants dissatisfied with what they have been granted, or who want the legal position clarified.

This will not necessarily be the fault of local councils. In many areas they are as much in the dark about how the new Act will work as the licensed trade itself. They can only go on what they have been advised and what the Act and the Guidance says. But the official Guidance does not provide assistance on all the technical and administrative points that are being raised now.

I am particularly angry at the state in which the application forms have been left. If we start from Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell's often-repeated point that the licensed trade will find this system simpler and less expensive, then the DCMS can rightly be accused of dereliction of duty.

At the beginning of one of the forms is the sentence ­ "Before completing this form please read the guidance notes at the end of the form."

There are no guidance notes. There is a reference to the Licensing Act being on the DCMS website. That is all. What a help!

Throughout all the forms, the guidance notes are a travesty. I do not think there is any other Government department which would dare to produce such shoddy and illiterate work and expect to avoid high-level criticism.

Yet apparently not one word of disapproval has been expressed outside of the licensed trade and its advisers. It is almost as if they did not care.

I understand that some of the application forms are being re-written ­ just days before the new laws take effect. This in itself is shameful.

Meanwhile, some licensees are being pressurised to send their applications forms in during the first few weeks because their licensing authority has suggested phasing of applications to avoid a bottleneck ­ a very sensible idea, but one that potentially penalises the early birds because of the uncertainty about what should be included.

All I can say is, the more help and advice you can get, the better.

l Peter Coulson is giving one of the first seminars on the new application procedures, based on the recently-published regulations, at Hazlewood Castle, near Tadcaster, on 15 February for the BII Yorkshire Region. Non-members are welcome, but places are limited. The cost is only £20. Contact 01276 417846 for bookings.