The following from Hamish Birchall.

In last Tuesday's Jeremy Vine interview on BBC Radio 2 (19 July 2005), licensing minister James Purnell casually dismissed the emailed claims of one listener, Susan Mallett, concerning, among other things, nursing homes cancelling musicians because they fear this will require a licence.

In fact, Susan Mallett's fears are well founded. The minister either displayed a woeful lack of knowledge about the legislation for which he is now responsible, or he intentionally avoided the difficulty.

For years I have been performing in hospitals for a small fee. The gigs are organised by a number of charities. The hospital makes a contribution to the musicians' fees direct to the charity involved. To the best of my knowledge, none of these performances has ever been caught by entertainment licensing because they were considered private. Most private gigs were exempt under the old regime. The new Act fundamentally changes this, however, extending entertainment licensing across many private performances that have never been caught before (private members clubs, for example).

A couple of weeks ago I had confirmation from my local authority, Camden, that my hospital performances will be licensable under the new regime (see copy email exchange below).

A Temporary Event Notice, which is what Camden recommends, is arguably not going to break the bank at £21. But applications must be submitted on prescribed forms simultaneously to the police and local authority at least 10 working days before the event. Only the police can object on crime prevention grounds.

This does mean, however, that organising such gigs after 24 November would be considered by Camden at least as a potential criminal offence, punishable by fines up to £20,000 and six months in prison.

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-----Original Message-----
From: HB [mailto:drum.pro@virgin.net]
Sent: 06 July 2005 15:15
To: Shaw, Oliver
Subject: Licensing - live music

Oliver

I have another question which I believe you may be able to answer.

I perform about once a month with my jazz trio in hospitals and care homes across London. These events are organised jointly by a charity with which I am registered as a performer, and the hospital or care home concerned. I am paid, albeit a reduced fee. The hospital makes a substantial contribution to that fee directly to the organising charity. The events are advertised within the hospital or care home, and relatives and friends of the patients can attend.

Under the old regime the charity considered that most of these performances were private and therefore exempt. What is Camden's view of such performances under the new Licensing Act?

I look forward to a swift reply.

Many thanks in advance.

Hamish Birchall

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----- Original Message -----
From: Shaw, Oliver
To: 'HB'
Cc: Leonard, Stephen
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 5:20 PM
Subject: RE: Licensing - live music


Dear Hamish,

Just to get back to you regarding a few of your queries today. Firstly, you asked about the charity performances below. Our view is that the below performances would require a Temporary Event Notice (TEN) if there are less that 500 people present at the event (and less than 12 per year). If there are more than 500 people, the event would require a premises licence. We expect regulations on TENs are released shortly.

You asked about the proportion of Camden bars/restaurants/hotels etc which do not hold a PEL but which have applied to vary their 'premises licence' to host live music. As I explained, we are not in a position to extrapolate that sort of information at this stage. In order to run those sorts of reports, we would need to get a programmer to design, test and run the customised report. Naturally, our commitment to work with the Live Music Forum to asses the impact of the Act on live music and dancing still stands, however this is something that we wont be in the position to look at until post transition.

Similarly, the same applies for your query to Amy regarding the percentage of pubs and clubs applications received to date. This query too would require a customised report to be set up by a programmer. Naturally, you'll appreciate that even if figures could be provided, numbers of applications are arriving at such a high volume at the moment that they would very soon be out of date.

Regards
Oliver Shaw
Licensing Policy Officer
Camden Council
Ph. 0207 974 5940
oliver.shaw@camden.gov.uk