Members of the licensed trade in the West Dunbartonshire area are being reminded of the need to undergo refresher training to ensure they retain their personal licences required to authorise the sale of alcohol on their premises.
Personal Licences are issued for a period of 10 years. However, in terms of Section 87 of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005, there is a legal requirement for personal licence holders to undertake refresher training within five years of the issue date of their personal licence.
They then need to produce evidence of this training, in the form of a new training certificate to the authority which originally issued the licence, no later than three months after the expiry of the period of five years from the date when the personal licence was issued.
This means that anyone receiving a personal licence which was issued with effect from 1 September 2009 requires refresher training to be completed by 31 August 2014, with notification to the Board by 30 November 2014.
Personal Licences with an issue date prior to 1 September 2009 should note that their licence is classed as having been issued on 1 September 2009 and should use that date to calculate the training deadline.
The issue date of a personal licence is not displayed on the licence. However this can be calculated by subtracting ten years from the expiry date of your licence, which you can find on the top right corner of the front page of the licence.
If personal licence holders do not refresh their personal licence holder training within the specified period, the Board must revoke the personal licence. The consequences of the revocation include the personal licence holder no longer being able to be the named on a Premises Licence as the Designated Premises Manager. This may result in the premises having to cease selling alcohol. Finally, should a personal licence holder have this licence revoked, they will be unable to reapply for a period of five years after the revocation.
West Dunbartonshire personal licence holders who will be affected by this training deadline will have now have received a reminder letter, and we would urge anyone affected to undertake refresher training to ensure that their licence and ability to sell alcohol is not affected.
If you are unsure of whether your personal licence is affected, please contact us.