THE LICENSING (SCOTLAND) BILL: AN ANALYSIS OF CONSULTATION RESPONSES
ONE: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Background
1.1 In June 2001, the Justice Minister (at that time, Jim Wallace) announced the appointment of the Nicholson Committee to undertake a comprehensive review of liquor licensing law in Scotland. Following extensive consultation with a broad range of organisations and individuals, The Nicholson Committee: Review of Liquor Licensing Law in Scotland ('the Nicholson Report') 1 was published in August 2003, containing 90 recommendations. The views of those who had been involved in the review were then sought in relation to the report and its specific recommendations. Analysis of the 161 written responses received was published in March the following year. 2 While the public consultation was running, the First Minister also announced the formation of the Working Group on Off-Sales in the Community, which reported, in February 2004, with 30 recommendations for reform.
1.2 In May 2004, the Scottish Executive established an Expert Reference Group to support the creation of a framework for the Licensing (Scotland) Bill and associated regulations. In the same month, it also launched another phase of written consultation to seek views on the document The Licensing (Scotland) Bill: A Consultation on Liquor Licensing. By the closing date at the end of August, 123 responses were received of which this report provides a summary analysis. 3
The consultation responses
1.3 One hundred and twenty-three submissions to the consultation were received by the closing date for comments. As with the 2001 and 2003 consultation, responses derived from a variety of bodies and individuals, and 48 came from consultees who had responded to the consultation on the Nicholson Report, which had itself included many of those who had been involved in the initial phase of the review. Respondents were placed in the following categories, with the number of responses from each type indicated in brackets.
- alcohol producers (5)
- community/religious/youth organisations (4)
- DAAT and substance misuse bodies (17)
- health and social work bodies (6)
- licensing boards (29)
- local authorities (6)
- members' clubs and student organisations (15)
- off-sales (10)
- on-sales (6)
- other statutory bodies (3)
- individuals (14)
- 'other' (including a police organisation, a catering chain, legal/planning bodies and a training company) (8)
1.4 It is important to appreciate that consultations such as this one are largely designed to elicit the views of key stakeholders and interests in the field and do not pursue a representative sample. However, there is a reasonable balance between, on the one hand, licensing boards and local authorities (35 in combination) and those involved in the production, supply and direct sale of alcohol (36, including clubs). Health, advice and social work-related bodies are, proportionately, less well represented. This analysis reports on submissions from across the board of those who participated, however well represented that type of consultee was as a proportion of the total responses.
1.5 There were 51 questions (including sub-questions) in the consultation paper. Thirty-four of these provided responses amenable to numerical quantification, and each of these received between 90 and 61 responses, the average number of responses to any one question being 77, almost three quarters of all those participating in the exercise.
1.6 It is important to note that a number of responses, to certain questions, particularly from licensing boards and local authorities, but also from trade representatives and other types of consultee, had clearly been prepared and shared in advance, and may be identical or very close in wording. Nevertheless, as separate submissions, they are counted individually.
1.7 By the very nature of consultation exercises such as this one, the numbers who chose to comment on individual questions clearly varies. Any interpretation of the proportion of responses in agreement or disagreement must be undertaken with caution. Given the relatively small number of submissions, it would not generally be appropriate to present the results in percentage form.
1.8 The nature of submissions varied widely: some consultees might provide just one word responses to a question, whereas others submitted more extensive discussion and comments. It is also important to appreciate that the nature of the responses did not always make it easy to decide whether the consultee was in agreement or not with all or part of a proposal, and that analysis is a matter of interpretation. It can also be the case that the similar additional comments and qualifications to a response may even be offered by consultees who otherwise indicate an explicit and definite positive or negative stance towards the question, so interpretation is further complicated.
1.9 For the vast majority of questions where consultees could provide a yes or no type answer and where the responses could be easily be quantified, those who chose to comment were overwhelmingly in support of the recommendation: for most questions three quarters or more of the comments were positive. However, one needs need to look closely at the qualifications and conditions respondents have attached to their statements of support or rejection.
1.10 There was a small group of more problematic proposals: three were rejected by most who had elected to comment on them and one received just a bare majority. Question 19, concerning the use of a 4 metres to define those neighbours entitled to receive written notice of an application was clearly the most contentious issue, with less than a quarter of those who commented on this agreeing that this distance would be sufficiently wide. The proposal in Question 5a that board policy statements should remain current for two years was rejected in three fifths of comments on a variety of grounds. A definition of casual staff based on a two or three month employment duration was deemed, by a majority, to be inappropriate. Less controversially, Question 4a about whether the formulation of national conditions should remove the need for additional local conditions, although not rejected by respondents, was supported in just over half of the comments on this matter.
aims and structure of this report
1.11 The general purpose of the work reported here was to analyse the responses for presentation in a published report to support the Scottish Executive in its development of proposals for the Bill. Where relevant, the analysis notes where certain groups responded to a question in a particular way and key points of agreement and digression, and topics that recur across consultees' submissions on a particular proposal .
1.12 The report is structured on the basis of the different sections of the consultation document, information being presented in relation to each proposal in turn . A brief summary is provided of how consultees reacted to each proposal and recurrent themes and responses from all groups are considered. A small number of the main topics which recurred in supplementary comments that were unrelated to a specific proposal are also summarised.