Scotland: Review of Alcohol Licensing Fees - Steering Group: Recommendation to Scottish Ministers

The Scottish Government recently issued the report looking at alcohol licensing fees, un-snappily entitled the ‘Review of Alcohol Licensing Fees – Steering Group: Recommendation to Scottish Ministers’.

The report itself be found by following this link

Disappointingly for many, no new fees regime has been proposed at this stage and so some (rather wide) local differences between fee levels will continue at least for the foreseeable future.

In total, four recommendations have been made, summarised as follows:

1. To place a duty on Licensing Boards to account for their costs and fee income in a transparent manner in order to demonstrate that their fees regimes operate on a cost recovery basis.
2. Once recommendation 1 is in place to thereafter revisit the fees regime issue as better data will available.
3. Occasional licence fees should be increased beyond £10, with some discretion afforded to Licensing Boards over the amount. A range of £20 – £80 was suggested.
4. To revisit the special status awarded to Members’ Clubs.

We will provide any relevant updates in due course.