Agenda item

To consider the update on the licensing function and progress made in relation to the review of the licensing service. 

15.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Interim Environmental Health Manager, circulated at Pages No. 74-77, which provided an update on the progress of the service review which aimed to deliver an effective and responsive licensing service.  Members were asked to consider the general update on the licensing function and the progress of the service review.

15.2          The Interim Environmental Health Manager advised that the Interim Licensing Team Leader had been with Tewkesbury Borough Council for three months which had made a huge difference to the progress of the licensing service review; there was still a long way to go but things were improving.  There continued to be issues with long term sickness within the team and there would shortly be a vacancy arising for a permanent member of staff.  The Interim Licensing Team Leader would be leaving at the end of the month and a new Licensing Operations and Development Team Leader would be joining the authority on a fixed term one year contract from the end of November.  It was noted that the review was now being monitored by the Corporate Programme Board to ensure progress was reviewed regularly and any issues identified and resolved quickly.

15.3          A Member drew attention to Page No. 75, Paragraph 2.3 of the report which stated that requests for temporary events remained high and she asked how long Temporary Event Notices (TENs) were valid for.  The Interim Environmental Health Manager confirmed that TENs related to a specific event and could apply for a number of occasions within a 12 month period depending on whether the venue was already a licensed premises.  She explained that the number of occasions had been increased by the government recently to give more opportunities for people to hold events following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.  Another Member raised concern that the Licensing section was under-resourced and he felt this needed to be considered in order to feed into the budget for next year; even without the issues brought about by the pandemic it seemed that the department had been struggling.  This view was shared by another Member who felt that the Licensing section had quite clearly been under-resourced for some time.  He noted from the report that an Officer had been seconded from another authority and he asked which one that was. He raised concern that the introduction of online applications would involve a lot of administrative work which would put more pressure on existing staff.  He drew attention to Page No. 76, Paragraph 2.7 of the report, which stated that a shared service with another Council would be investigated as part of the review and he suggested that another authority may already have an IT system in place which could be utilised and he asked if that had been given any thought.  In response, the Interim Environmental Health Manger advised that the secondment referenced in the report was the current Interim Licensing Team Leader who was from Cheltenham Borough Council which had already implemented online applications.  She explained that every licensing authority was required to have its own system to be able to process licences so, in a shared service arrangement, there would be an option as to whether to retain a system in-house or to adopt the other authority’s system but it would still be necessary to have an internal system and it was not possible to automatically use another authority’s system.  In terms of the delay in the delivery of online applications, she explained that the Licensing team had been working with the Business Transformation team and a series of meetings had been arranged to deliver this project; however, a number of issues had been identified with the back office system which would cause problems when moving online.  The Interim Licensing Team Leader had been working to improve the back office to ensure the correct files were in place so there was a straightforward link to online applications which would prevent further delays later on.

15.4          It was

RESOLVED           That the update on the licensing function and the progress of the service review be NOTED.