The dawn of an electronic revolution?

The law will be changed later this month to allow licensing applications to be submitted electronically. Jeremy Allen predicts a slow start.

Electronic applications should become law on 28 December, but how many local authorities will be ready? The government has consulted on their "proposal to introduce a new process for electronic applications". It sought views on amending the Licensing Act 2003 by introducing a new process for making online applications in response to the EU Services Directive.

Such is the power of the European community, and our response to it, that the process still appears to be on track. Responsibility is split between the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Culture, Media & Sport.

The Act will be amended and regulations made to enable nearly all licensing applications, with the exception of reviews and personal licences, to be made online. The applicant only needs to submit one application to the local authority. Once the fee has been paid then the local authority has the responsibility to ensure that all the other statutory recipients receive a copy.

This could obviously cause a problem with certain plans. Plans of a large complex are likely to be extremely difficult to read on a computer screen. This however is the way in which they will be served and given the cost of printing them off, it is unlikely that a local authority will provide copies.

At the end of the process, local authorities can provide either a paper licence and summary or an electronic licence and summary containing all the hours and conditions. It is hoped that over a period of time, most local authorities will agree that the electronic procedure is good enough. If a DPS displays the wrong licence, then it can easily be checked by anybody coming in to inspect it. All they need to do is download the latest licence from the local authority website and then simply check it.

It will be interesting to see how this works out. I can't frankly see a huge number of electronic applications being made on 28 December. Whilst submitting an electronic application becomes lawful on that date, it is unlikely that anybody will take action against a local authority that simply cannot accept an application made in this way. I suspect that it will take a while for it to become well used for anything other than Temporary Event Notices.

Jeremy Allen is senior partner of Poppleston Allen