Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the Cabinet Member Policing and Equalities meeting held on 7^th October, 2024.

(b)  Matters arising

The Minutes of the meeting held on 7 October 2024 were agreed and signed as a true record. 

There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Law and Governance

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Law and Governance which provided an update on the outcome of the six-week consultation undertaken on the review of the Council’s Gambling Policy Statement of Principles for the Gambling Act 2005 and to recommend a revised policy for the period 2025-2028.  The Draft Gambling Policy, Consultation responses and the local area profile were appended to the report.  The report had been considered by the Licensing and Regulatory Committee at their meeting on 19 November 2024 (their Minute 13/24 refers) and would also be considered by Council at their meeting on 3 December 2024.

The Gambling Act 2005 required each Licensing Authority to prepare and publish a Gambling Policy Statement of Principles. The policy sets out how the licensing authority intends to approach its licensing responsibilities and how it intended to promote the three licensing objectives.

The current Gambling Policy came into effect on 3 January 2022, to cover a period up to 31 January 2025.  The policy must be renewed every three years and be subject to a full consultation process.

The report advised Members of the consultation process that had taken place and outlined the comments received and amendments made to the Council’s draft Gambling Policy.

There were no major changes to the policy except some minor wording amendments. The general principles of the Gambling Policy Statement of Principles remained the same and the document was still centred around the Gambling Act’s three licensing objectives, namely:

·  Preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime

·  Ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way

·  Protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

Following public consultation, the revised draft Gambling Policy Statement of Principles was now ready to be recommended for adoption to take effect from 31 January 2025.

The Cabinet Member noted that the report had been considered by the Licensing and Regulatory Committee at their meeting on 19 November 2024 and that the Committee had recommended that the Cabinet Member explore ways to increase future responses to consultations and writes to the Government asking them to consider reducing gambling premises in certain areas to avoid saturation.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member for Policing and Equalities:

(a)  Notes the results of the consultation and proposed changes to the revised Gambling Policy Statement of Principles for the period 2025-2028.

(b)  Requests officers to look at the steps that could be taken to

increase response rates to consultations.

(c)  Agrees to write to the Government requesting that consideration be given to reducing the number of gambling premises in certain areas to avoid saturation.

(d)  Recommends that the City Council adopts the Gambling Policy Statement of Principles as attached at Appendix A of the report.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

To consider any other items of business which the Cabinet Member decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of business.