FOR GENERAL RELEASE  

 

1.    SUMMARY AND POLICY CONTEXT:

1.1.         This report sets out the review of the Annual report entitled ‘Public Health framework for assessing alcohol licensing’.

 

2.    RECOMMENDATIONS:

 

2.1.         That the committee notes the contents of this report.

 

2.2.         That the Public Health framework for assessing alcohol licensing report should continue to be used to develop licensing policy and assess premises licence applications.

 

3.    RELEVANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION/CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS:

 

3.1.         Although public health is not one of the four licensing objectives and the Licensing Act 2003 precludes basing licensing decisions on health grounds, the Government’s section182 Guidance to the Act gave the green light for local authorities to develop frameworks for assessing alcohol licensing to provide evidence to the Director of Public Health both at a policy level and operationally through assessing individual applications.

 

3.2.         This public health framework document for assessing alcohol licensing is normally updated annually and was first published in September 2013 after “reducing adverse impacts of alcohol on health and wellbeing” was identified as a key public health priority by the then Director of Public Health.

 

3.3.         The annual report is produced by the Public Health Intelligence team. It contains ward by ward analysis of crime and disorder data and health data and as such is a valuable tool in assessing the potential impact of new licences within a community. Responsible authorities such as Public Health and the Licensing Authority may use this information to inform a representation relating to an individual application.

 

3.4.         As well as updating the report, the licensing team have worked with the Public Health Intelligence Team to review the layout to make it more user friendly and relevant. The document will be accessed via the council’s website and will be used primarily by licensing officers when assessing licensing applications. A demonstration of the latest public health framework document for assessing alcohol licensing can be found in the following link  Alcohol Licensing - Dashboard Demo-20220112_174834-Meeting Recording.mp4. Each crime and health indicator is ranked by ward. The document also includes a post code map function which shows numbers of licences premises, the main premises use, trading as and the licence type.

 

3.5.         The current report uses police recorded crime and incident data, and health data from 2017/18 and the revised document has been updated using data from 2019/20. It was decided it would not be beneficial to use the latest 2020/21 data, as this data has been heavily influenced by the Covid- 19 pandemic, and changing restrictions particularly on licensed premises and social contact during this time period. This data would therefore not be useful in informing ward level decision making for the latest edition of the licensing framework.

 

3.6.         For example, levels of violent crime in the city centre dramatically decreased during lockdown periods, and the geographical distribution of anti-social behaviour also changed, with incidents spread out across the city during lockdown and then becoming more concentrated in the city centre again as restrictions eased. So if you were breaking it down on a ward by ward basis 2020/21 data would show higher levels in peripheral wards than would normally be the case. 2020/21 data is also affected by changes to the way people used the health service during this time, with people not attending hospital as they would normally, making it difficult to compare data with previous years.

 

3.7.         Although we couldn’t use the 2020/21 data as a comparison, initial data during this time supports our restrictive city centre policies.

 

 

 

4.    COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND CONSULTATION

 

4.1.         Licensing Strategy Group, finance and legal services.

 

5.    FINANCIAL & OTHER IMPLICATIONS:

 

            Financial Implications:

 

5.1       There are no direct financial implications arising from the recommendations made in this report.

 

            Finance Officer Consulted:         Michael Bentley                        Date: 12/01/22

 

            Legal Implications:

 

5.2      There are no direct legal implications. 

 

            Lawyer Consulted:                       Rebecca Sidell                         Date: 04/02/22

 

            Equalities Implications:

 

5.3      There are no direct equalities implications.

 

            Sustainability Implications:

 

5.4      There are no direct sustainability implications. 

 

            Crime & Disorder Implications:

 

5.5      Contained in the body of the report.

 

            Risk and Opportunity Management Implications:

 

5.6        No implications

 

            Public Health Implications:

 

5.7      Contained within report.

 

            Corporate / Citywide Implications:

 

5.8      The local licensing delivers support improvement that help businesses comply with the law speedily, easily and economically.

 

 

6.         EVALUATION OF ANY ALTERNATIVE OPTION(S):

 

None – for information only.

 

7.         REASONS FOR REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS

 

For information only.

 

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

 

Appendices:

 

 

Documents in Members’ Rooms

 

1.  None.

 

Background Documents

 

1.    None.