Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 28 July 2015

The minutes of the meeting held on 28 July 2015 were confirmed by the Members present and then signed by the Chairman.

Councillor Bassadone requested that all members with the same surnames have their initials included in minutes and agendas so that they could tell them apart.

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillor P Hearn.

Councillor S Adshead was absent.

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)            may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct for Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

There were no declarations of interest.

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements and ask questions in accordance with the rules on Public Participation

There was no public participation.

R Hill explained that the report summarised the results of consultation on the proposed revisions to the Council’s two statutory licensing policies, covering alcohol, entertainment and gambling licences. Following the Committee’s initial approval in July, consultation was carried out over an 8 week period in August and September, with direct notifications being sent to the statutory bodies and other representatives identified in both Acts. Details were also published via the council’s website, social media and Dacorum Digest.

He advised that 8 responses were received to the consultation and these were included in the report. He said officers considered all of the responses when making final adjustments to the draft policies, and the comments under each response detailed any particular changes made.

He explained that if the Committee were satisfied with the final draft policies, they were asked to endorse them and refer them onwards to Full Council with a view to adoption. Under both Acts, councils are not permitted to delegate the power to adopt policies to committees or officers.

It was proposed by Councillor Peter and seconded by Councillor Whitman that the committee endorse the draft policies and refer them to Full Council.

Resolved:

1.    That the Licensing and Health and Safety Enforcement Committee endorse the revised draft Statement of Licensing Policy under the Licensing Act 2003 for the period of 2016-2021, and refer it to Full Council for approval and adoption;

2.    That the Licensing and Health and Safety Enforcement Committee endorse the revised draft Statement of Principles under the Gambling Act 2005 for the period of 2016-2019, and refer it to Full Council for approval and adoption

R Hill explained that many areas covered by the licensing service had seen reform and revision in the last 3 years, and animal licensing was one of the last remaining areas to be examined.

Members had before them proposals to replace the current application forms for three of the six types of animal licences issued by the council, substantially increasing the amount of information requested from applicants. He explained that in each case, the legislation required the Council to consider a complete range of details about the operation of a particular business prior to granting a licence. He said the revised application forms would mean that these details were in future collected at the time of application, rather than post-application during the officer’s or veterinary inspection.

He advised that due to time pressures it had not been possible to finalise the two forms not included in the agenda pack, these would be brought to a future meeting. The Committee were therefore asked to disregard paragraphs D and E of the recommendation.

It was proposed by Councillor Taylor and seconded by Councillor Peter that the committee adopt the new animal licence application forms.

Resolved:

That the Licensing and Health and Safety Enforcement Committee adopt the new animal licence applications as the Council’s standard format, with effect from 1 November 2015:

1.    For animal boarding establishment licences under section 1 of the Animal Boarding  Establishment Act 1963

2.    For pet shop licences under section 1 of the Pet Animals Act 1951

3.    For riding establishment licences under section 1 of the Riding Establishment Act 1964

Councillor Fantham said he had spoken with R Hill prior to the meeting and was advised that the Council loses approximately £80k on delivering its licensing functions each year.

Councillor Peter asked why they couldn’t break even with the licensing fees. R Hill explained that they were restricted on the amount they could charge , as fees could not exceed the costs incurred in issuing a particular licence. Alcohol and entertainment licence fees were fixed nationally by the Government and were unchanged since 2005. He said the LGA had been campaigning on the issue, highlighting that the amount of money that was lost could be used towards paying for schools, nurses, carers etc. He advised there were also various other licensing functions they couldn’t charge for such as charitable collections, and enforcement not leading to a conviction.

Councillor Bassadone queried why so many charges had been reduced, for example a new dog breeding licence has gone down by 20.6%. R Hill explained they had revised the application forms so that more data could be collected at the point of application so the officers would spend a shorter length of time at inspections and that would reduce that cost to the council. He said they couldn’t set the fees at a profit level, they had to be set in accordance with the cost occurred to the council. He explained that the gap between new dog breeding applications and renewals had narrowed because they now involved similar amounts of work and the new fee reflected that much more than the previous fee.

Councillor Mills said he couldn’t understand why the fees were being reduced for dog breeding licences for example. He asked if the existing fees had caused any legal action. R Hill explained they had to review the fees every year and change some of the processing times where there could be a potential overcharge. He advised that they hadn’t had any new applications for dog breeding licences for several years, however they still have to look at their current procedures and they couldn’t justify keeping the fees the same. He said that fees had to be correctly calculated pre-emptively to avoid challenge.

Councillor Bassadone asked how many times they had been challenged in the last financial year. R Hill said there had been no challenges in that time. 

Councillor Peter asked if Central Government were aware of this problem and if not, could they write to them to make them aware. R Hill advised that the issue was being raised frequently by the LGA and others. He said there was a Home Office consultation before the Parliamentary Election this year but unfortunately there was such a low response rate from councils. He said the Chief Executive had asked him to respond, however we were 1 of 20 authorities nationally to reply and therefore the Home Office decided that was insufficient evidence to justify further action at that time.

Councillor Mills felt they should continue charging the existing fees rather than  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

R Hill highlighted that the report was for information purposes only. He said they had received a letter of concern from the Hertfordshire Carers Forum about the lack of wheelchair accessible hackney carriage vehicles in the Borough. He explained that the Council had previously adopted a mixed fleet policy and approximately 20% of taxis in the borough were wheelchair accessible. He advised he would be investigating and working with the Carers Forum to address their concerns but at this stage it was just something he would be monitoring and members were asked to note the report. 

Resolved:

The committee noted the report.

R Hill advised that the full committee would likely be required again in November.

The meeting ended at 7:56 pm

To consider passing a resolution in the following terms:

That, under s.100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972 Schedule 12A Part 1, as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006, the public be excluded during the item in Part II of the Agenda for the meeting, because it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted, that if members of the public were present during this item there would be disclosure to them of exempt information relating to: