The following from the link in the previous post.

On 31st December 2009, the DCMS finally published details of the consultation to amend the Licensing Act 2003 and exempt some small-scale live music events from licensing. Strangely, the government's proposals make no mention of exempting music performances in schools, and missing from the DCMS's list of consultees are the NUT, the NAHT, the Independent Schools Association and the National Confederation of PTA's.

Under the Licensing Act, schools staging musical events in front of an audience are exempt from paying the premises licence fee, but they are not exempt from paying for Temporary Event Notices (and this will cost £252 p.a. if the school takes up its annual entitlement of 12), nor are schools exempt from the requirement and cost of advertising the licence application in the press for a period of 28 days.

But that is only the beginning of what the CEO of the Independent Schools Association described as 'a burdensome bureaucratic nightmare'. When attending licensing hearings, schools expecting that educational needs will allow an application to proceed unopposed might be in for a nasty surprise. LACORS guidelines for Licensing Committee Hearings advise that cultural considerations 'will always be subservient to the Licensing Objectives'. Accordingly some Licensing Authorities have implemented wholly unnecessary and prohibitive restrictions. Conditions placed on the premises licence of Verulum School in St Albans run to over 1,400 words – and include conditions such as 'neighbours are made aware by letters of the type of event and the time the music will stop' 'There are to be no more than thirty events per year at the school. There are to be no more than five events in any one month'.

Even a conservative estimate of the amount schools have spent on music licensing is likely to be embarrassing for the government, and all of the live music statistical reports issued by the DCMS have carefully avoided any reference to how the Act has affected schools and colleges.

Since Nov 2005, if the 24,000+ schools in England and Wales have each spent £1,000 on music licensing and advertising this would have amounted to over £24m. According to the DCMS, the National Confederation of PTA's could account for up to half of the 360,000+ Temporary Event Notices issued in the three years to March 2009. DCMS statisticians have not asked Licensing Authorities how many of these TENs included permission for live music, but the total cost of these licences is over £7.5m.

The DCMS recently attempted a rather feeble justification for this fiasco: 'If there was no restriction on entertainment events at schools, independent schools could simply operate as venues.' Ronnie Bridgett DCMS Spokesman, 8 Sep 2009.

This begs the question: should the Licensing Act be amended to cover pet animals just in case schools simply operate as zoos?

Lord Clement-Jones's Live Music bill, which contains a proposal to exempt school music from licensing is due to receive it's 2nd reading in the House of Lords on 15th January 2010.