The Licensing Board is a separate entity to the council itself but benefits from its members being local elected members who are supported through the Chief Executive’s Office.

With such a close relationship the Board utilises the council’s expertise, knowledge and resources in relation to equalities including:

• accessing information that informs its equality outcomes, policies and decisions;
• working with key employees across the council on areas such as training and development, raising awareness of equality issues in general;
• the clerk to the Licensing Board meets regularly with the council’s equalities manager to keep abreast of any relevant information and issues that could have an impact on the work of the Board;
• liaising with partner organisations such as NHS Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire Violence against Women Partnership, NL Disability Access Panel, Police Scotland and so on, on initiatives to raise awareness and promote understanding; and
• using council premises for its meetings to ensure accessibility at its hearings.

Licensing of Sexual Entertainment Venues

The Scottish Government felt that having a discretionary regime solely for the purpose of licensing SEVs would ensure that the activity is properly and effectively regulated.  This led to the introduction of a specific, discretionary licensing regime for SEVs, which allows local authorities to consider local circumstances in setting the number of permitted SEVs within their area and enables appropriate control and regulation to be exercised in respect of these venues.  Such a regime requires to be considered in the context of the promotion of gender equality and seeks to balance the freedom of individuals to engage in legal employment with a right of local authorities to exercise the appropriate control and regulation of adult entertainment venues in their area.

If there is no resolution in place, then no licence is required to operate an SEV and SEVs would operate without direct regulation from the local authority.  New SEVs could also come into operation and sexual entertainment in these venues would remain unregulated.  Passing a resolution to licence SEVs means any existing (there are none at present) and new SEVs would require a licence and would therefore be directly regulated by the council.  Where a licence is granted, it is intended that licence conditions would help reduce the risk of criminality such as human trafficking and prostitution and help safeguard the wellbeing of performers, customers, and the wider community.

The consultation on the regulation was conducted via email sent to a list of consultees together with its publication on our website and social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter, and received 522 responses.