'Neutral licensing' is just pie in the sky - Peter Coulson

It is very hard to look back four years and still understand why the British Institute of Innkeeping, among others, thought that moving licensing to local authorities would be a "good idea".

The plain truth is that it was part of a long-term government strategy to free up the court service for radical change - which is still going on. But the real problems of local government control of licensing and pubs are now beginning to emerge.

As the new system beds down, my impression is that in some areas the idea of impartial and non-controversial licensing departments is a pipe-dream. The Licensing Act 2003 was engineered to try to create this wonderfully neutral establishment, whereby if no-one objected to an application, it had to go through on the nod.

But in some areas there is no doubt that certain departments are being "lined up" to put in a representation, just to ensure that the authority gets a chance to slap some conditions on the licence.

Westminster makes no secret of the fact that environmental health departments are on auto-response when any application hits their desks. They object on principle, and to hell with the facts. Anyone applying for longer hours is going to cause additional disturbance, so every application for longer hours must be objected to, with exactly the same phrases.

So the system is being skewed. But they know this and are unrepentant. They never did like the idea of non-involvement in the first place.

What should be of concern to the trade is that the much-vaunted impartiality is being affected by what local government might describe as "partnership working". This means the three key departments - the licensing office, environmental health and the police - liaise and decide what conditions they would like to see, and the licensing officer, under the guise of "mediation" simply makes you an offer you cannot refuse!

On a couple of occasions recently, I have seen letters in which the licensing officer has simply told the pub that there are conditions that the police and EHOs would "like" to see on the licence. If he agrees, no trouble. If he doesn't, it will go to a hearing. There have been no residents' objections at all. This is entirely generated from the responsible authorities.

Similar stories emerge from telephone conversations or visits, all of which have the same thread - that the licensing department is acting as the messenger of the council as a whole. The message being: "This is what we want to see."

In other words, it is a far cry from the more formal approach adopted under the previous regime, where any person wishing to object had to put their objections to the applicant directly from their own department. I am sure that there was considerable liaison between the police and the council in some instances. But it was by no means as cosy as it is now.

Now I am sure that you do not want me to re-hash all the intellectual debates that lawyers love, but the Government resisted the idea that councils would not be fair, by saying: "Who needs fair? This is a local decision, for local people".

Shades of The League of Gentlemen! The problem with a less formal, less legalistic system, is that some will not play by the rules.

Turnover in local government often means that these issues are being decided, in the first instance, by untrained and unqualified staff, whose knowledge of the law may be sketchy, to say the least.

But we said all this at the start. As far as the trade bodies are concerned, the answer is "You made your bed - don't complain about the bedbugs!"