Scotland - The Position following Personal Licence Renewals

The Scottish Government have published their annual figures reflecting the number of premises and Personal Licences held per Board across Scotland.

What is striking is the reduction in the number of Personal Licence Holders.   Between March, 2018 and March, 2019, 5,274 Personal Licences were revoked for failure to produce evidence of refresher training.  There are two points in time when a Personal Licence can be revoked for this reason, the first on the 5^th anniversary of its grant and since 2014 when evidence of training started to fall due there have been a number of revocations for failure to submit refresher training each year.

However, this year when both the 5^th and 10^th year anniversaries came into play, the increase was material being some 62%.  It is difficult to conclude that the increase is attributable to people leaving hospitality based employment.  It is more probable that many people have failed to comply with the procedure and although they remain within the hospitality industry, no longer have the benefit of a Personal Licence.

The figures do not appear to reflect those persons who also surrendered their Personal Licence.  The significant reduction in available Personal Licence Holders may create issues going forward, in that there may not be sufficient Personal Licence Holders available for operators to easily replace individuals who leave premises, particularly as unlike in England and Wales an individual can only be DPM of one site and temporary dual cover is not permitted.