The Home Office have confirmed today that they will not allow councils to set licensing fees locally.
ACS chief executive, James Lowman, said: “We are pleased that the Government has listened to our concerns about locally set licensing fees and recognised the certainty and consistency that centrally set fees provides retailers. The power for retailers to nominate their own payment date for licensing fees is also welcome and will ease administrative burdens.”
The Home Office have said they will not be introducing locally set licensing fees at this time and pledged to work with the Local Government Association to develop representative and up-to-date evidence of licensing authorities’ costs in delivering licensing functions, and their capacity to measure them.
The Home Office originally consulted on the introduction of locally set licensing fees in February 2014. The consultation looked at capping licensing fees, local setting of licensing fees and transparency of setting fees – ACS’ Submission to the Locally Set Licensing Fees Consultation is available here: http://www.acs.org.uk/download/acs-submission-to-the-locally-set-licence-fees-consultation/.
