The Scottish Government has published details of amended regulations on personal licence fees, pressing ahead with plans to introduce a £50 renewal fee despite concerns raised by a wide range of business groups including ACS.
In its submission to the Scottish Government's consultation on the issue, ACS raised concerns that the introduction of a fee for renewing a personal licence would place unnecessary additional costs on retailers. ACS also raised concerns that as some convenience retailers have multiple personal licence holders in each store, the introduction of a fee to renew personal licences could discourage them from renewing each licence and having new people become personal licence holders, ultimately meaning fewer qualified licence holders working in each store.
There are currently over 56,000 personal licences in force in Scotland. If every licence were renewed, this would cost businesses almost £3million in total.
ACS has previously called on the Scottish Government to consider removing the requirement to renew personal licences altogether instead of charging for renewals – a policy that has been in place in England and Wales since 2015.
ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “We urge the Scottish Government to look again at this policy which has long been deemed unnecessary by authorities in England and Wales. The introduction of personal licence fee renewals will introduce needless additional costs for retailers, especially those with more than one personal licence holder in each store.”
If the draft amended regulations are not challenged by MSPs, the £50 fee will come into effect for renewals processed after October 1st 2018.
ACS’ submission to the consultation is available here: https://www.acs.org.uk/lobbying/scottish-government-fee-applying-renew-personal-licence .
The consultation on the introduction of fees closed two weeks ago on August 15th. While the Scottish Government has published the list of responses to the consultation, it has not published an official response itself. The full list of responses to the consultation is here: https://consult.gov.scot/criminal-justice/alcohol-personal-licence-renewal-fee/consultation/published_select_respondent
