Form 696 -2003 Licensing Act

Originally posted: December 16th 2008.

696 TEARS

Feargal Sharkey, chief executive of British Music Rights, whose band recorded 'Teenage Kicks', widely known as John Peel's all-time favourite record, has said that the 2003 Licensing Act, requiring the completion of a huge and exaustively detailed form every time live music is played, was having a damaging effect on small pubs, clubs and bars featuring live music. He called on the Government to act, in November 2008.

Giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee, he said that bureaucracy and the cost associated with getting a new licence to play live music was proving prohibitive for smaller venues.
He added that smaller venues were essential for enabling young musicians to get their first taste of playing live in public and called for post-legislative scrutiny of the Act, asking that it be made easier for smaller venues to obtain licences to play live music.

"What we need to achieve is a vibrant, lively music scene. From my own personal experience it's one of the only opportunities that young singers and musicians have of first appearing in public."
He explained that besides problems experienced in smaller venues the live music industry business in the UK was booming and was second only to that of the US.
He also argued that live music suffered from problems of public 'perception' and said objections to live music applications were often made due to concerns about noise levels; but investigations by the Live Music Forum has found the majority of complaints registered were about neighbours playing their HI-FIs too loud and not about noise made by live events.
Stephen Spence, assistant general secretary of Equity, told the hearing that changes to the Act, such as excluding small venues from it, would benefit the live music industry.
The form demands that licencees give police masses of detail, including the names, aliases, private addresses and phone numbers of all musicians and other performers appearing at their venue, and the ethnic background of the likely audience. Failure to comply could mean the loss of a licence or even a fine and imprisonment.
The police claim they need the information demanded in the Form, which runs to eight pages, so they can identify which acts or venues attract troublemakers, and make sure venues are 'safe', but Mr Sharkey is so angry about it that he has been consulting lawyers about how to stop it.
As the chief of BMR, he applied for a judicial review into whether a local authority has the right to make it a condition of publicans' licences that they will have to fill in Form 696. The scheme was introduced by Metropolitan police after incidents at gigs in 2006, some involving guns. Theoretically it applies to any licenced premises where there is live entertainment, but Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, head of the Met's pubs and vice squad, claimed that in reality it would apply only to performances likely to pull big crowds. This may well be how it is presented; how it might even work to start with, but with the police behind it we can expect 'mission creep'.
The Act applies in 21 London boroughs, but professionals in the business fear that if it becomes accepted it will be copied in other cities. Martin Rawlings, director of the Pub and Beer Association, said, "I know of licencees faced with this, saying they are just not going to put live music on. Form 696 is being used only in London so far, but there are similar things going on around the country, where the police are asking publicans to sign various protocols. It has gone too far, frankly."

Feargal Sharkey has also complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the police appear to be focusing on the music enjoyed by black and Asian teenagers. One of the questions in the form asks the licencee to specify the type of music that will be performed, giving as possible examples "Bashment, R&B, amp, Garage" [Bashment?] Another question asks, "Is there a particular ethnic group attending?" This is not a spoof. The Force is asking publicans and managers to do its terrorist recon for it, and by accident or design, this has to be another little piece chopped out of our liberties.
In a letter to Sir Ian Blair, the (then) Met commissioner, Mr Sharkey said, "In explicitly singling out performances and musical styles favoured by the black community we believe the use of Risk Assessment Form 696 is disproportionate, unacceptable and damaging to live music."
The Musicians' Union also consulted lawyers, because they believe that performers' privacy is being invaded. Rick Finlay, a drummer in London venues for 30 years, warned that even if licencees agree to fill in Form 696, musicians may not co-operate. "I would be pretty angry about it, and I can tell you some of my colleagues would refuse to work with me rather than give their details. The last thing they need is a deterrent, which implies that there is something wrong with what they are doing."

However, Detective Chief Superintendent Martin claimed Form 696 was already making live music in large venues safer. "It's not about being risk averse, it's about managing the risk. If you're a publican and you are just having some performers to entertain your regular customers, you won't be expected to do a risk assessment [yet]. It's for when the performance is being put on to draw people in." He added, a little disingenuously," We will never assess somebody just on the genre of music they are performing."

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrapthe696