minutes

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 24th October 2007 (Minute Nos. 563 - 567) were taken as read, approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

declarations of interest

No interests were declared.

part a minutes for confirmation

enforcement protocol amendment to include gambling act enforcement

The Senior Solicitor introduced his tabled report which updated Members following the meeting of the Licensing Committee on 24th October 2007, when they had requested further information with regard to costs and balance sheets before they considered whether to adopt and agree the amended enforcement protocol, following the addition of the Gambling Act.

He explained that he had hoped this meeting could have been at a later date to enable more time to prepare the report which had taken a while to produce. He explained that there appeared to be a slight surplus of funds on licensing income, but he did not consider this was sufficient for a major enforcement programme in the future.

In response to a question regarding whether salaries had been included in the finance spreadsheet attached to the report, the Senior Solicitor explained that as the Licensing Officer was on maternity leave, this was currently financially favourable to the Council. He explained that this would change when the Licensing Officer returned to work in March 2008.

The Chairman reminded Members that the figures in the report were only estimated figures and could not be guaranteed. He considered that that the funding received did not match the requirements to carry out the protocol in full.

A Member considered that it was futile to sign up to the protocol if SBC could not follow it through. He suggested that details of the funds needed to finance the salary of an Enforcement Officer be sought from the Finance Department and then the Executive be asked to fund the salary of this Officer.

The Senior Solicitor explained that many Local Authorities carried out their licensing enforcement on a programmed, pro-active basis, SBC did not do this as funds did not allow this to happen.

A Member suggested that SBC adopted the protocol and any extra funding be ring fenced for any priorities that may occur.

thanks

The Acting Licensing Officer was thanked for his recent licensing training session.