Examination of Witnesses (Questions 56
- 59)
TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER 2008
COMMANDER SIMON
O'BRIEN, CHIEF
INSPECTOR ADRIAN
STUDD, MR
SIMON REED
AND MR
GEORGE GALLIMORE
Chairman: We now turn to the view of
the police. Can I welcome from ACPO Commander Simon O'Brien and
Chief Inspector Adrian Studd, and from the Police Federation Vice-Chairman
Simon Reed and George Gallimore, the Representative of Inspectors
in the North West. Adrian Sanders will start.
Q56 Mr Sanders: Would you agree with
the role of the police in making the licensing system work is
really one of event management, in co-ordination with others,
as much as enforcement?
Mr O'Brien: Broadly, that is probably
about right. Clearly our role is enforcement when breaches come
to light. There is also a very important part for us now to play
in problem-solving our way through some of the issues that come
out of town centre management. Yes, in partnership we can do both
of those ends of the scale.
Q57 Mr Sanders: Is there significant
benefit in police and local government licensing teams being co-located
or local authorities consulting with police forces on their statements
of licensing policy? Should this not be standard practice?
Mr Studd: In relation to the consultation,
the local authority have to consult with the police, as the responsible
authority, on their statement of policy, so that does go on. Of
course, it is crucial that it does happen. In my experience, it
does happen. In relation to the co-location, there are obviously
a number of police forces across the country where some of the
licensing officers are co-located. In fact, Westminster here is
one such example. It does work well here, but in other places
where they are not co-located it works equally well. I think it
depends on the local structure and the local solutions. Either
way can work.
Mr O'Brien: I think we will get
to a point, as we did before the current legislation, where we
are legislating our way through certain problems, but I also believe
very clearly, not just from this piece of legislation but the
Crime and Disorder Act in general, that working more closely with
partners and getting upstream of some of these problems is where
we should be going. Certainly my experience of working in partnership
is that if we can look at what is the licensing position of a
particular authority, where we can get a bit more teeth into that,
into giving a bit of a view about what we think a town centre
might look and feel like at night, that is a very useful place
to be, and therefore we are not necessarily moving in there to
enforce some of the activities that later happen. I certainly
think, generally speaking, the way that you have brought a number
of different pieces of legislation together under this particular
Licensing Act has been positive. I think the number of powers
that we now have under this Act is positive. I also think that
it was a little about culture change in our country. The future
may look a lot more at how we get that change in culture, and
we may not be able to legislate our way through that: that is
more about working in partnership and problem-solving our way
through that.
Q58 Mr Sanders: Can I ask you what
your view is of Temporary Event Notices, and the role you have
to play in the fact that the public have no opportunity to have
their say, either directly or through their elected representatives?
Mr Studd: Temporary Event Notices
do cause us concern for a number of reasons. For a start, the
48-hour response time that the police have is completely inadequate.
Once the notice is issued by the person who wants the event, the
police have 48 hours then to respond. I think it has been touched
on already that if that comes in on a Friday evening, the time
has already gone by the time the licensing officer is back on
the Monday morning. It is often addressed to the Chief Officer
of Police, so by the time it has gone through Scotland Yard and
gone out to wherever it is going, again two days has clearly gone.
We would certainly be looking, for example, for five working days
as an example. In relation to the grounds of objection, again
that does cause us concern, that the police are the only ones
who can object. Of course, it is not a matter of the local authority
even being able to consider an application, because it is not
an application: somebody merely issues the notice and, unless
the police object, the event goes ahead. We very much think that
it should be open to others to have a view, around the democratic
process of residents and people like that, and be allowed to consider
it in relation to a broader remit than just crime and disorder.
Q59 Helen Southworth: You might have
heard earlier that in my town centre I have one of the highest
densities of pubs and clubs in the country, so I take a very keen
interest in the management of the night time economy. Could you
perhaps describe what you think a local authority needs to be
able to do in terms of its licensing policy for an area and in
terms of things like cumulative impact areas, but, also, the broader
issues around the management of individual premises, so that it
can work effectively?
Mr O'Brien: It would be very useful
if, in designing a place at the town centre, we look at how many,
for example, vertical drinking premises there might be in a particular
location, and then how and when they might start to turn out at
a particular time. I think that could be done much more in a consultation
and voluntary arrangement between different premises. There is
a real issue, if we did talk about—and it was perhaps dismissed
earlier—a café culture, in relation to what does
that town centre look like at what time in the evening. Perhaps
it is not just considering what the town centre looks like at
three o'clock in the morning—frankly, an awful lot of places
have never looked that good at three o'clock in the morning when
there has been that amount of drinking going on—but what
it feels like at six, seven, eight, nine o'clock in the evening.
I think that a greater degree of planning, forethought, and the
ability for local authorities, MPs and others to have more of
a say and objections on some of that could be quite a useful way
to go forward.
Mr Reed: The nature of licensed
premises has changed as well. Previously we had pubs, traditional
pubs, and we heard earlier about the changes that have been made
within town centres. Lately we have seen the growth of far larger
pubs, mainly with several floors, with thousands of patrons in
them, and there is an issue about how we cope with those. We have
also seen that a number of these complexes have grown up in towns,
often on the edges of towns, where you will have nightclubs, bars,
cinemas and restaurants all within the same complex, and, again,
holding thousands of people. They themselves are a challenge in
terms of policing and moving people around, and if disorder breaks
out, in getting officers to them. We are seeing the nature of
licensed premises themselves change considerably, not necessarily
just in relation to the Act but just over the last 10 or 15 years.
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